


Everybody Dies in Their Nightmares

by KriegsaffeNo9



Series: The Great Collapse [4]
Category: Destiny (Video Games), Little Witch Academia
Genre: Betrayal, Blood and Gore, Child Abuse, Child Death, Cthulhu Mythos, F/F, Gen, Giant Spiders, Jealous Sucy, Jealousy, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sad Ending, Spiders, Suicide, The most downer ending I have ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-07-13 00:14:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16006262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KriegsaffeNo9/pseuds/KriegsaffeNo9
Summary: Five months after helping stave off an alien invasion, Akko is starting to lose her grip on the present.  An emergency intervention ensues, and Sucy and Lotte take a venture into her mind to see what they can do to help.A sequel to The Shape of No Hope.  More specifically, this is an interquel...Head all bloody, the pain has come.





	1. At Summer's End

"When the dreams begin, it is already too late." -- Emissary of the Nine

"Maybe we were someplace good, you know. [And then the Ghosts took us away.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JGDWKJfgxQ)" -- Seraph

* * *

 

It was a few more weeks before class began again. There had been quite a few students gone home for the summer, or parents who'd come to the school to be closer to their children. Everyone was on edge after the invasion; the aliens' defeat mattered little when that piece of alien flagship was in steady orbit over the Earth, silent, fatally wounded, but with un-life still stirring within its depths. The Taken were still a problem, of course. The Taken, it seemed, may be a problem for a very, very long time.

Akko spent half her time home in Japan, stepping through one of the new leyline terminals Croix's advances in SSS had achieved, and half her time in Luna Nova, her new home. She couldn't leave Diana too far behind; she wasn't comfortable with travel, not yet, and had yet to meet her parents. That was fine by everyone involved. Processing that their daughter was 1) gay and 2) in love with her fellow world-saver was taking some time for Akko's parents.

On that afternoon three weeks before school began again, Avery abruptly took Akko by the hand after lunch and dragged her to her recording studio.

The "recording studio" was an empty classroom, a little one used for Practical Defenses 101 through 404. Practical Defenses was mainly a class about shooting attack spells at cardboard cutouts of unpopular people or expired fruit. Today, Avery had gone to some effort to print out special targets.

"It's fuckin' easy, yo," Avery said, patting a cardboard standee of a Hive Thrall. Akko recognized it, though more from the footage she'd seen after that night than from actually living it. Some madman with a camera caught her battling through the alien invasion of Wedinburgh. That particular Thrall, hunched and ready to spring, she had slashed in half with the Shiny Rod's axe form about half a second in the screenshot's future. "I'm doin', like, practical defense against aliens, for my YouTube channel, eh? And nobody's killed as many aliens as you. So..." She gestured grandly at the cardboard cutout. "Teach 'em."

Akko felt a tweak in her heart, like someone with cold hands had pinched one of her arteries. "I... I.... isn't that bad luck? The Hive are stuck on that ship piece in orbit. They're not going anywhere. They may have starved to death already. We don't wanna, like, tempt fate or anything by teaching people..."

"Akko. Babe." Avery leaned against her, elbow digging into her stomach. There were a lot of things she could have said, and being Avery, she said this: "I know you're dumb as fuck but listen. Never say never, people like to think they're survivalist supergods. Plus? We've discussed it, you're not from a witch family, you don't know how we do things. So give us some fuckin' protips and we can get this over quick, eh?"

Akko didn't have anything to say to that, and that was how Avery put her on camera and in front of a cardboard Thrall.

"Sup, internet?" Avery said, stepping in front of the camera. "It's me, Princess Avery, and today we're gonna learn alien self defense from the leadin' lady herself, Akko Kagari, you know her. Look at 'er!" She stepped aside and pointed at Akko, who forced a smile and waved. "Okay, so here's how we're startin'. This lil' guy--" Avery stepped over to the cutout and tapped it. "What's this one called again?"

"A Thrall," Akko said without looking behind her. "They're th--"

"Thrall, gotcha. You seen 'em on TV, they're the fast lil' bastards, they got the--the bite thing!" Avery chomped for the camera. "What can you tell us about 'em, Akko?"

"They're fast," Akko said, softly. "Very fast. They don't have guns and they're not smart like a person, but..."

She remembered being trapped in mouse form in the grip of a Thrall, its thumb down her throat, the alien struggling to not just cram her in its mouth and finish her then and there.

"They're smart like a wolf or I guess a velociraptor is smart. And they smell good. I mean, they don't smell good but they have, uh... good senses... no eyes but I don't think they need 'em." Akko wiped her forehead with her sleeve. Why was she so damn sweaty all of a sudden?

"Cool, cool. So how do you kill one?" Avery said.

"Shoot it. In the head. Or run. Running's good."

"Got it, got it. Okay, now here..." Avery plucked her wand from her belt and waved it at the cutout. It rotated in space-time and revealed a cutout of an Acolyte, posed mid-step as it raised its shredder at the cameraman. Avery had inexpertly cropped out the dead person it was stepping over. "...is the ones with the eyes. What're these?"

"These are Acolytes," Akko said. "They have magic wand guns! So don't even bother fighting them, just run. They will shoot you because they just have to pull a trigger and you have to say words."

"Really," Avery said.

"Yes, Avery, you should run."

"You didn't run. Especially not from this bastard!" She swiped her wand and the cutout became much bigger. A mighty Hive Knight in amber clad loomed over Akko, green eyes emitting brilliant light, occult patterns in green painted across its bony shell and titanic sword.

Akko flinched and tried not to look behind her.

"Oh, come on. Urzok, the Hated! We heard that bitch's name on camera! From that girlfriend of yours who knows stuff 'cause she got kidnapped by aliens and some shit." A light audibly clicked on in Avery's head. "Oh! Right! Diana got kidnapped by aliens, didn't she? And they did something to your hair." She touched her own hair, stroking one of the longer bangs.

When she left to chase Diana to her ancestral home, Akko's hair had been a ruddy brown. When she made the news saving the world from an alien invasion, it had become paper-white, even her eyebrows and eyelashes. Months had passed, and the stolen color did not return. Akko, it seemed, was permanently white-haired.

"The fuck they do to you?" Avery said.

Akko shoved her out of the way and walked out of the room, closing the door just a little too loudly behind her.

"Sure, whatever! Walk out on me, prick!" Avery flipped her the bird. "Whatever. Whatever!" She turned the camera off and rotated the cutout back to its Thrall shape. "Takes me thirty freakin' minutes to make that. I'll use it. Just you watch, eh..."

Akko found the smallest, most private niche she could, pressed herself into it, and tried not to puke her guts out in terror. _Okay,_ she thought. _I'm in Luna Nova. I'm safe. I'm totally safe. Nobody's getting hurt. Especially not me. Especially not Diana. Everything's... totally..._

_Wait. How's Diana doing?_

* * *

Diana took her dinner in her bedroom, and Akko joined her,

"Diana," Akko said, and she stopped and looked down at her spicy chicken curry and the sentence stopped before she could even reach the part where it turned into a question.

"Yes, Akko?" Diana said.

Akko looked her over. The scar on her forehead where Prof. Nelson had shot her in the head with a rifle (long story) had faded a little, but it would be there for a long time; Lotte had suggested Diana cosplay the lady from The Last Unicorn, which Akko had, after checking with Diana if it were cool, seconded. She was well on the way to recovering from how gaunt she'd become within a month of the invasion, subsisting on multivitamins, intravenous feeding, and ice cream; she was having pho, something she didn't even consider trying to eat as recently as a month ago. The medical marijuana was helping, of course. Akko would forever associate the smell of Girl Scout Cookie marijuana with Diana.

"Akko?" Diana said. "Is something wrong?"

"No," she said.

Diana set her bowl on the folding table. "You're certain?"

"Yeah."

"Alright." She slid her fingers under the bowl. She smiled at Akko, a bit weakly, and resumed eating.

Akko picked at her curry. "Sucy has a real tasty poison she likes to put in curry. Makes it taste kinda spicy-sweet. Then you feel the bugs crawling under your skin and it's kinda not worth it... I should ask if I can get the taste without the poison."

Diana nodded.

They didn't speak much the rest of dinner. Akko gave her a hug and a kiss (after they brushed their teeth) and left for her dorm room.

* * *

For a few hours Akko hung out with Lotte and Sucy. They watched a movie on Lotte's viewing globe, read in their bunks, and one by one went to bed. At midnight, Akko was the last one awake, staring at her Chariot poster.

She had considered drawing in Chariot's new cybernetic limbs--a few lines here and there would do it--but she didn't know if that would be more respectful to who Chariot was now or less respectful to who Chariot used to be. Maybe it wasn't worth thinking about. What was worth thinking about, anyway?

Nothing is worth thinking about, she thought. Just shut your brain up and go to bed.

So she did. After a while, anyway.

Akko awoke at three in the morning screaming in terror, rolling out of her bed in a mess of covers. Screaming, cursing, she tore her way out of the covers, bringing the Shiny Arc to bear at the ceiling, taking aim where she still saw three ghostly eyes burning overhead.

"Akko?" Lotte said.

Lotte had to repeat herself before her voice was louder than Akko's heartbeat in her ear. The air in the bedroom was dry and cool; her skin was hot and soaked with sweat, too sensitive. She felt like she was steaming in the chill air. She lowered the bow, slowly releasing tension in the magic blast.

"Are you alright?" Lotte said, her voice lacking hope.

"Where are we?" Akko said.

"We're in our dorm, Akko." Lotte took the ladder down from her bunk good and slow, trying not to cause too many creaks. "We're safe. What happened?"

"I... I..." She fought for words. "I... I don't... it... I... don't know." She wiped sweat from her brow and her damp, snow-colored bangs; she flung what felt like a cup of it into the side of her bed. "Where's Diana? I wanna see... Diana..."

"Can I touch you, Akko?" Lotte said. She knelt near Akko, looking down at her through glasses that caught the glint of moonlight through the window and were transformed into glaring lights.

Akko trembled and lowered the Shiny Arc; it transformed back into the Rod. She felt a faint jab of pain in her forearm and screamed and yanked her arm away, kicking blindly at the direction of pain. She brought the Rod to bear again and suddenly everything was very heavy and before she could start swinging it like a bat she fell into a starless coma, flopping into her sheets like a bad video game ragdoll.

Sucy wiped down the needle on her antique syringe. "Son of a bitch," she said. "You can't just wake up to the sound of your screams at a decent hour, can you." She looked up at Lotte, who looked back at her in shock. "She's got PTSD, genius. This'll keep her from murdering us like we're space monsters."

"I'll... get help," Lotte said, trying to remember where her viewing globe was.

"You best," Sucy said.

Lotte climbed back up her bunk, taking it one rung at a time and wondering just how badly in over her head she was.

When Sucy was sure Lotte wasn't looking, she knelt next to Akko, lifted her into a seated position, and gave her a firm hug. She was breathing steadily, so that was a good sign, and her eyes were moving only vaguely under the lids. She ran a hand over Akko's forehead. "You poor stupid bitch," Sucy whispered. "Stop scaring me."

* * *

Akko came to in Diana's lap. She knew it was Diana's because nobody else had legs quite like that, thin but bandy, deprived but returning to strength, day by day. Diana's warm hands were stroking her head, running her dexterous fingers through her fragile white hair. The last of Sucy's knockout potion left her system. "Hey, Di," she said, not opening her eyes just yet. Just to be careful.

"You're safe," Diana said. "I love you."

"Thanks," Akko said, reaching up a hand and waiting for what she knew in her heart was going to be a bony, ambient-temperature, three-fingered talon that would yank her arm into position to be gnawed apart. Diana's hand glided into her hand and squeezed tight and Akko cried. Just a little. "Thank you, Diana," she said.

Diana sniffled. "You're safe. We're in the common room. Sucy is here and Lotte is here. Lotte's getting help." She thought her next words over and said at last, "Would you like one of my Xanax?"

"What's that make you feel like?"

"Like the world's not crashing down on me."

"Yes, please," Akko said, and listened as Diana retrieved a small pill bottle. She broke a tablet in half; at the soft snap Akko opened her mouth and stuck out her tongue. Diana placed the pill-half onto her tongue and Akko swallowed it. She felt a full-body wince, not really a cringe, at the taste of it. "Oh, jeez, that's... that taste. It's vile."

"It is," Diana said, stroking Akko's face. "I'm sorry I didn't have water on me."

"It's fine," Akko said. "Can I open my eyes?"

"So you know," Sucy said, "I'm here, so brace yourself for that."

Akko smiled a little and blinked. Her vision soon resolved to the dim-lit dormitory commons, on the big ring-shaped couch with the extra-wide segments on either side of the entrance to facilitate lying down. Sucy sat on the edge of the arm facing her; Lotte was next to her facing the oddly oversized round table in the middle of the couch-circle, headphones plugged in to a slot on her viewing globe. Sucy nudged her. "Keep safe, Akko, I'm getting some help."

"Thank you, guys," Akko said. "I can't begin to... okay, I can begin, like, I just began, but... thank you."

"Sure," Sucy said, blowing a lock of hair further away from her face than it already was, hardly even needing to be dismissively blown.

Before long, Lotte unplugged her headphones and rolled the viewing globe over to Akko and Diana. The globe showed a tired, smiling man, well into his fifties, with dark and worn skin and rough hands clasped as he rest his arms on his computer desk. "Good morning, Ms. Kagari," he said. "I'm Dr. Meir Sternberg, an arcanopsychologist specializing in somnomancy, including onieromancy and incubomancy. I believe the symptoms Ms. Jansson described are a good indicator of post-traumatic stress disorder. Now, Ms. Kagari, just to make sure there has been no misunderstanding... your nightmare was related to the incident in January, yes?"

Akko nodded. "Do I have to... describe it to you any? 'Cause it was kind of..."

"It's alright," Sternberg said.  "Say only what you're comfortable saying."

"I had a dream... about something that happened. And when I woke up it was... it was kind of like I wasn't awake and..." She bit her lip. "Stuff." Diana took her in her arms and gave her a bracing hug.

Dr. Sternberg nodded. "Do you have an opposition to exploring your condition in your sleep?"

"Oh, not at all," Akko said. "I mean, it started in my dreams.  I think.  Maybe."  She thought, briefly, of Avery's video.  "Yeah, let's do it asleep-style."

"She's had experience with dream healing," Sucy said, pulling a small mushroom from inside one of her medicine pouches.  "Mind, she was the one doing the healing that time."

"Oh, yeah!" Akko said.  "I keep thinking I just dreamed that!"

"Nope," Sucy said.

  
Dr. Sternberg nodded. "Good.  Today will be exploratory.  We'll be investigating your subconscious in a safe way, through safe, clear metaphors that will help you process your issues and communicate them with us. From there the healing can begin in earnest. That said, there are a few precautions we should take before beginning the spell. Have you performed sacraments for Atlach-Nacha, Ms. Kagari?"

"At Witch Christmas, yeah," Akko said. "...Do you celebrate Witch Hannukah? Is that weird to ask?"

"Yes," Diana said, softly but insistently.

"Ah, I'm only Jewish by family, miss," Sternberg said, gently waving her off. "It's Witch Christmas to me too. The first day is my favorite, though Cthulhu's day is a close favorite as well. Of course, I have professional bias."

"So, uh... how does this work?" Akko said.

"First, to ensure that we have the necessary actors and ingredients for this rite... is there anyone present who is especially fond of spiders? Perhaps prone to keeping them as pets?"

* * *

Jasminka popped a few chocolate-covered espresso beans in her mouth. Her pet Goliath bird-eating tarantula Swiss Miss clung to her shoulder, rubbing its inch-long fangs with its chelicerae and issuing a hissing sound. "I'll gladly take this challenge," she said (Jasminka, not the tarantula).

"Good, good," Meir said. "Pleased to meet you, Ms. Antonenko." In the gap between Lotte running to get Jazzy and the two of them returning to the commons, Dr. Sternberg made a cup of coffee and Sucy went to retrieve some of Akko's bedding and plush Alcor. "Very well. Ladies, I do believe we are prepared. Volunteers, please ready yourselves."

Sucy and Lotte positioned themselves in the gap that let students walk into the sofa-circle and take a seat, backs facing Akko as she lay on a big couch with her head on her pillow, Alcor squeezed tight in her arms, and her covers drawn over her body. "Ready," Lotte said, straightening her glasses.

"As I'll ever be," Sucy said, not overly concerned. "Any regrets, Lotte? Just in case we can't escape from the eternal darkness that is the brain of Akko Kagari."

"What?" Lotte said.

"Just saying, we might never wake up."

"Are--really?" Lotte said, looking over at the viewing globe.

"She's just giving you a hard time," the doctor said. "Once all the preparations are in place, this is among the safest onieronautic spells we can cast. Atlach-Nacha does most of the hard work for us."

Diana and Jasminka stood just behind them, wands in hand, Jasminka's ordinary school-issue wand, Diana her Rose, a still-living rose plant wrapped around it, the bud growing between the tines. Dr. Meir had suggested Diana stay out of Akko's mind; her feelings for her were so strong and so entwined with the incident that she would complicate matters to enter her mind. She took the news gracefully, though not without regret. "Lead us, doctor," she said.

"Listen to my words and intone the spell," the doctor said. He closed his eyes and held out his own wand, an ancient thing hand-carved from the talon of some unfathomably massive arthropod. He recited a poem, his voice leather-warm and cozy:

"I pray to thee who brings the peace I know only in sleep  
Whose eighteen legs in pair and four the net of dreaming weave  
The queen beneath Voormithadreth where serpent people grieve  
My Atlach-Nacha, night's gray bride, it is your name I weep

The spider-harp of eldritch silk is silent in my keep  
The rafters barren, motes all gone, from threshold and from eave  
Your daughters leave me to the pain that builds with every breathe  
For at the Thousand Stairs of Sleep my thoughts refuse to leap

O Spider-God, bereaved of Leng, I pray to you this night:  
Let fang descend and puncture heart that only beats in vain  
And steal me from this little life of halves if life at all

O Slumber's Fang, this waking waste is low without a height  
The prison-earth which gaols the soul in cages of the sane  
I cast my soul to your Abyss and may I ever--"

"--fall," Diana said, rearing back and smashing Lotte in the back of the head with the green-glowing cosh which grew from the end of her wand.

"Nighty-night," Jasminka said, stepping aside after clocking Sucy with her own magic cosh.

The magically concussed Sucy and Lotte flopped bonelessly onto the couch besides Akko. Her eyes fluttered, and half the spell, half the Xanax, she fluttered back into the maw of sleep.

Diana ran her finger along the underside of the rose vine that served as a handguard on Rose. It was her newest and favorite nervous tic. "And we wait, doctor?" she said.

"We wait," he said. "There are more sorceries to work if things take a turn for the worse. Ms. Kagari is magically potent. I believe you know who said 'men go to bed daily with an audacity that would be incomprehensible if we did not know that it is the result of ignorance of the danger.'"

Jasminka took a seat and nuzzled her head against Forever Peace on her other shoulder. "We could play cards, Diana," she said.

"...Additionally," Dr. Sternberg said, "I would have asked you to leave the opossum behind, but it doesn't seem to have negatively affected the ritual, so... for the time being, it stays."

Forever Peace screamed at his own ass. Swiss Miss hissed at it.

Sternberg sipped his coffee. "Hrrm.  I suppose it's done nothing to work against the ritual so far.  And it would be ill-advised to send you and your pet off and leave Diana alone... so yes. One way or the other I suppose it's going to be staying here."

"I'll take a game of cards," Diana said. "I hope you don't mind us sitting not-quite-across from each other." She gestured to the enormous central table.

"Oh, like, poker?" Jasminka said. "I was going to play two-man two-beast solitare. Four heads are better than three."

The tarantula reared back on its hind four legs and flashed its enormous fangs.

"Oh, sorry, three heads and that sort of headchest you have. Sorry, Missy."


	2. Dead Man's Slouch

"You're not paranoid if there really is a monolithic embodiment of pure evil out to get you." - Conspiracy Theory-D

* * *

 

Lotte blinked off the concussion. "Hey, what's with the--" After a moment she realized she was still falling. In fact, she was not falling to the couch, she was falling through an endless shaft bored through the earth, heat and pressure increasing with every second. Also-- "--why am I nake-e-ed?!" She scrambled to cover herself.

Sucy floated down from a slightly higher elevation, their speeds matching at last. She was falling head first so the wind would keep her hair plastered over her left eye. She was also naked and made no particular effort to conceal herself. "Hey, Lotte. So, falling to our death is kind of boring, isn't it?"

"Boring?!"

"Relative to a lot of ways we could be dying, anyway. Maybe we should try and swim into the walls so we can at least leave some grody splattered-on-the-wall corpses. Wouldn't that be fun?" She smiled.

"Probably not!" Lotte said. "And we probably shouldn't die if we can help it! Did Dr. Sternberg say what would happen if we died in Akko's mind?"

"Nnnnnope. Guess he forgot. Ah, well, we'll find out soon enough. Hey, look at that."

As soon as the words left her mouth, the two witches fell through a massive web crawling with (what Lotte presumed were) spiders (since they could move freely across the web and all). Lotte screamed, soon through a closed mouth so none of the spiders would get the wrong idea, and tried to brush the plump, swift arachnids off of her. They were fast, their tiny little foot-claws digging into her skin as they ran around her in tight circles. The air felt like it was squeezing her, slowly tightening the further she fell.

The squeezing stopped before it could constrict her breathing. The wind rushing past her ears quieted. The rock around her gave way to twilight skies dense with stars, the endless stone gone with the suddenness things happen in dreams. Her descent had slowed to a lazy drift through the air like a feather.

The spiders crawled off of her and into the web that arrested her fall, now stretched invisibly thin save where it attached to... an outfit the spiders had woven for her out of spider-silk. Oh, that was nice of them. She now wore a short-sleeved tunic patterned with snowflakes and, on her tunic's skirt, the embossed image of a skull with antlers growing from its eye sockets. Well, that was morbid.

Sucy was still floating at roughly the same level, seated in webbing as if on a swing. She wore a long dress with a helical serpent pattern bisecting the front of the dress; Sucy had tugged open a cleavage hole in the final loop before the figures' heads met at her neckline. On the sides of her skirt (well, on the side Lotte saw, and presumed it was symmetrical) was a trumpet-playing figure that looked somewhat like Kokopelli and somewhat not.

"You're looking good," Lotte said.

"I always look good," Sucy said, smirking.

The spiders hung around them in the air, tending to the invisible web. They were swollen, shiny, and colored a rich purple, like grapes the size of grapefruit. Their legs were spindly and spiky and their arched fangs glittering silver.

"I gotta admit, I can't wait 'til we can say goodbye to the spiders," Lotte said, looking at what they were falling towards. It was a city, an endless one, neon-soaked skyscraper hyperreality shepherding patches of cozy neighborhoods. Or so it looked like as they came closer and closer to it.

"They're a gift, jackass," Sucy said. "I kept it under my hat because I wanted to go into the dream instead of GM it, but Atlach-Nacha is an old family goddess on my mother's side. She hasn't prayed to her in a while, 'cause of the marriage and all..." She grumbled. "Zhar _lloigor_ , I hate my dads. Anyway. We're not like Akko rushing in blind to my psychic dreamscape and nearly getting the world drowned in the mushroom tide. Attles has my back. And yours, I guess. Hey, [the ground](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LDEm8mC-Nw)."

Lotte held her breath and stretched out her legs--where did the spiders get the leather from to sew little sandals for her? Wait, don't ask. She landed on a sidewalk with a soft clap of leather on concrete, Sucy a half-second behind her. The webbing fell away, the spiders ballooned to the ground, and off they were, speeding away into the city.

Lotte and Sucy were positioned at a four-way crosswalk in Akko's sprawling dream-metropolis. It was lovely from the air, but more than a little intimidating on the ground; the titanic skyscrapers awash with neon and massive TV screens were like resting gods watching over the smaller neighborhoods.

"...it's quiet," Lotte said. Nothing but the wind and their own breathing.

"Well, let's get rolling," Sucy said, shuffling down the sidewalk, ignoring a blinking Don't Walk sign as she crossed the street towards a corner deli that looked transposed from Blytonbury. "I kinda-sorta remember Akko ran into a bunch of me's more or less immediately. So let's just creep around and..." She came to a stop in front of a poster pasted in the window of the deli.

Lotte looked both ways before jogging through the crosswalk. "What did you find?" she said, skidding to a halt just behind her.

The poster depicting two Akkos ducking behind a boulder. One Akko shushed the other while the shadow of something humanoid but distinctly inhuman, and with especially wide-open jaws, loomed overhead. Emblazoned on the poster in three languages was the phrase "Be Quiet Or They Riot! Stay indoors and shut the heck up people!"

"...Should we be whispering?" Lotte whispered.

"Whatever," Sucy said a little louder than before. "Those Akkos both have brown hair. You notice that?"

Lotte nodded and tried to shush Sucy. Sucy bit her finger, eliciting a squeal of pain. "He-e-ey, stop it!" Lotte said. "Things could go bad!"

"Sure could," Sucy said. "Wanna vandalize some buildings?"

"No!" Lotte said, and that was a real yell, one that echoed, and she clamped her hand over her mouth in shock after. "Suuu-cy..."

"Lotte, Lotte, Lotte." Sucy put her arm around her friend's shoulder. "Didn't you listen? Atlach-Nacha's got us covered. We have the run of this place. Let's have some fun, find stuff out, mess around. It's like research, you know? We're here to get to the heart of her freak-out, so let's make her freak out a little."

Lotte narrowed her eyes. "She freaked out a lot, Sucy. Or did you forget she almost fired a super magic arrow through our ceiling earlier because she thought an undead space god was trying to kill her?"

Sucy rolled her eye. "Fine. Let's go knock on some doors, gently. Or maybe we could slip pieces of paper under the door so we don't even have to bruise some wood."

Litte bit down a "phrasing."

"That one's such a lovely mental image, isn't it?" Sucy said; she licked Lotte's cheek. "Alright," and now she was whispering, "let's quest."

* * *

It had taken Akko a few seconds to encounter life in Sucy's dream; both remembered that from Akko's breathless retelling of her adventure in Sucyland. Lotte and Sucy wandered Akko's dreamscape for what seemed like hours and saw nothing, not so much as a dream cockroach or fly.

There were noises, like cars driving somewhere else, birds crying, faint music from empty shops. The noises were without source, like ambient sounds in a video game. It put Lotte on edge.  
There were signs of life having vacated. They saw cars parked in the middle of the street, doors yawning. A Shiny Chariot doll dropped by a see-saw; not far away on the ground, a wand gnawed into uselessness, and near that, a puddle of dried gore... still tacky, as Sucy found, touching the gravel.

"Yep, this is human," Sucy said.

"Shhh!" Lotte said.

Sucy sighed, but softly. "Fine," she signed, "let's do a little more looking and maybe we'll find some neat dead bodies."

"What?" Lotte whispered.

Sucy flipped her off and scooted away from the bloodied gravel.

Past vacant schools and silent bars they found a gas station with an OPEN 24/7 sign blinking slowly in the night. Exhausted, in spirit if not in body, the witches took a seat on a bus stop bench outside.

"I'm thinking they took 'be quiet' very seriously," Sucy said.

"No kidding," Lotte said. "I'm... gah, I'm not feeling very good." She fanned herself.

"Me neither. I'm gonna need a quick snack break." She picked up a rock and hurled it through the gas station's window before Lotte realized what she was doing. In the next second Sucy _swooced_ right in. Lotte cursed her reflexes and fumed, crossing her arms and looking around, waiting for something to lurch from the alleys. Lots of alleys around this part of dreamtown.

Sucy nudged open the sliding doors and hoisted an armload of discontinued snacks and drinks. "Want any?" she said.

"No tha... actually, yes," Lotte said, grabbing a chibi-proportioned Chariot figurine from Sucy's arms. "This is candy..?" The figure was posed with a cauldron with a plastic lid on it; she pried it open, scratched off some foil, and a faint lemony scent arose from inside. There were a handful of tiny lemon pellet candies inside. "Huh..." She popped one in her mouth, sucked on it, and regretted it instantly. "This... this is not good." She set the container on the bench and looked for a trash can to spit the foul sugary ingot into.

Sucy stuffed treats into pockets sewn all around her dress--surely the most divine blessing they had yet received from Atlach-Nacha's sponsorship. The pockets were manifold and located in many clever places, and she was so busy maximizing her inventory efficiency she didn't notice Lotte slipping into an alley nearby in the search for an outdoor trash can.

Admirably, Lotte somehow managed to miss the alien for nearly three seconds. For a moment she mentally debated if she wanted to waste time loking for a trash can specifically, and then thought about the relative rudeness of littering in Akko's subconscious. Then she heard a faint squeak of shock. That caught her ear and directed her eye, and then she saw the monster.

She'd seen photographs and video of the Hive. The knowledge of what they were had been scarier than the Hive themselves when seen on a screen, separated by time and distance. In that alley, real as day, was one of the weakest Hive types, a Thrall. It was crouched by a small hole in the side of a building, sniffing at it with unadorned noseholes set above a lipless, gore-streaked mouth full of flat teeth. It had no eyes, just a darker patch of skull above its mouth and nose. Its gangrene-colored flesh was armored with cracked, bony plates; four symmetrical pairs of holes ran up its body, from gaps where the legs met the hips up through its torso. It had three hooked fingers on each hand, and it was reaching into the hole.

It plucked out a little orange Akko-mouse, dangling her by the tail. She flailed and squirmed in its grasp. "Please please please please please--" she squealed, and the Thrall pressed her into its mouth. It chewed until the screaming stopped, and then a little more, and swallowed her. Fresher blood streaked between its teeth and down its chin.

Lotte swallowed her candy pellet.

After a few seconds, another terrified squeak sounded from the hole, and the Thrall reached inside again.

Lotte scooped up a spear-length section of pipe from the ground--of course there was one--and charged the monster, screaming as she swung the sharp end at its head.

The pipe rebounded off its skull, leaving a cracked dent. The Thrall sprawled away from her, and Lotte swung again, but the beast caught her attack on its armored forearm. The shock of the rebound sent Lotte stumbling away, and the Thrall seized the opportunity to pounce on her, pinning her to the ground by her biceps.

It was taller than her, and stronger; she kneed the thing and hit flat armor along its sides. It took a moment to shriek in her face, spewing rancid breath and frothy mouseblood.

 _"Murowa_ ," said Sucy, and a bolt of mana blew the alien's head to dry-rot pieces. The monster's body collapsed to flaming ash.

Lotte sat up, the remains of the Thrall sliding off of her. She blinked, as if it would clear the decaying filth stuck to her glasses' lenses, and tried to think of something to say.

Sucy thwapped her on the top of her head with a wand of carved bone. "Check your stupid fucking hip you dumb idiot," Sucy said. "Atlach-Nacha made us some fresh new panties, she didn't _fucking forget_ to give us _wands_."

"I..." Lotte said, feeling at her hip where she kept her wand in the real world and found a bone wand of her own. "Phrasing," she muttered.

"Whaling on an alien with a lead pipe. Telling me to keep quiet. Goddamn... _Ano ako pagpunta sa gawin sa iyo, hijo de puta_?" She fished a bottle of Ramune from her dress and used a spell to snap it open at the neck, bypassing the marble entirely.

While she chugged her drink, Lotte crept over to the mouse hole and knocked. "It's safe now," she said.

An Akkomouse peeked out. "They're really gone?" she said, sniffling. The poor thing looked exhausted, with heavy-lidded eyes and a frazzled hair blob.

"Yes, tiny mouse Akko!" Lotte said, holding out her palm. "You can come with us. It'll be safe. I promise. What's your name? Are you a thing that Akko feels?"

"Squeak..." the Akkomouse said. "I am. I'm the Akko Who's Afraid To Become A Mouse Again Because She Almost Got Eaten By A Monster."

Sucy mumbled something neither Lotte nor the Akkomouse could hear.

"Was that one of your friends the Thrall ate?" Lotte said softly.

"No," the Akkomouse said. "That was me. I've been getting eaten for, like, days now." She scampered out of the mousehole at last and up Lotte's arm and to her shoulder. Lotte climbed back to her feet.

"Days?" Sucy said. "How long have the aliens been here?"

"Oh, since they showed up in the real world," Scared Mouse Akko said. "Used to be they showed up once in a while, like, once a week. Just one alien, too, like one Thrall or Wizard or Knight. But then they started just, like, showing up all the time, so the Akko Council declared a state of emergency. I was busy hiding so I didn't hear and, well, a Thrall got me pinned down, and..." She sniffled, tearing up.

"Shh," Lotte said, petting her. "It's alright."

"Don't suppose you can tell us where the others are turtling up, huh?" Sucy said, throwing the bottle against the wall, where the bottle burst into glittery glass confetti.

* * *

 

Akko, Sucy, and Lotte were still, their eyes still beneath their lids, their breathing synchronized. Diana watched them sleep, turning Rose around in her hands. She had half a mind to call Traveller, but it somehow seemed unjust to stir him from his sleep. Especially since, Black Goat forbid, if she had a seizure, she was on a couch and with Jasminka and Sucy's assortment of potential curatives nearby.

Swiss Miss sat on Akko's chest. She stood silent guard; her only movement was a gentle stroking of a little skin above the neckline of her shirt. She seemed quite invested in Akko's breathing, her pedipalps tapping seconds on Akko's chest: in, held, out.

"I'll raise," Jasminka said, throwing an extra handful of candies into the pot.

On the viewing globe, Dr. Sternberg squinted at his hand, which was splayed out in tufts of Forever Peace's fur. "I'll see you," he said, and Peace nudged a few candies into the pile with his pointy face.

Jasminka sweated over her hand. "Alright... let's show 'em." She turned her cards around, revealing a pair of threes and a pair of nines.

Forever Peace turned around, revealing three sevens. "Good show," Dr. Sternberg said. "Your poker face is incredible."

"I try," Jasminka said, wistfully pushing the pot toward the viewing globe.

* * *

With the mouse's guidance Sucy and Lotte found the building in under a minute. They recognized the skyscraper--none of the others had been sporting Christmas decor, nor sporting the name Akko Kagari's Bitchin' Crash Pads. Of course, they'd last seen it hours ago, near the start of their quest.

The door was nailed shut from the outside, a dozen enormous hardwood planks hammered in place; a tiny peephole was the only sign of vulnerability. A "DON'T PUSH THIS BUTTON" sign had been hastily pasted above the doorbell. Sucy pushed it (the button, not the sign).

After a moment the peephole opened and a distinctive Akko-eye appeared in it. "Password?" she whispered.

Lotte took a guess: "Chariot?"

"Good," the Akko said. "You're clear." The door swung open and Sucy and Lotte hiked in; their Akko slammed the door shut. The Akko pressed herself against the door; in the dimly-lit entry corridor, they could see she wore a spare suit of flak armor and helmet from the 90s movie adaptation of _Starship Troopers_. "Alright, some ground rules," Flak Jacket Akko said. "One," and she held up a finger, "keep quiet outside the quiet rooms. Two, laundry is on Wednesdays. Three, party all the time and never don't party. Got it?"

"Sure," Sucy said.

"Did you know you left this one behind?" Lotte said, holding out Eat-Fear Akko. Eat-Fear Akko waved and smiled sheepishly at Flakko.

"No m'am," Flakko said, petting the mouse Akko with her palm. "Let's get this one some cheese stat from the European Cheese Wheel of French Chaos."

"She's throwing a party?" Lotte said. "I mean--you are?"

"Yeah," Flakko said, leading them through the bare concrete corridor to the far iron door. "I mean, why not? World's going crazy, nothing's right, might as well party."

"Sounds like a red flag," Lotte said, _sotto voce_ , to Sucy.

"Sounds like a rational response to the insanity of Earth," Sucy said.

"Don't encourage them," Mouse Akko said.

Flakko threw open the iron door and party music spilled out. "Have fun in there," she said, shouldering an imaginary gun and pumping an imaginary pump and muttering "Click-click!" for emphasis.

On the other side of that door was something neither Sucy nor Lotte recognized. It was the stadium where Akko had seen Shiny Chariot live, moved indoors to a staggeringly titanic ballroom. An ocean of auburn-haired Japanese teenagers and children were dancing in the aisles, slamming down snacks, or watching the stage show.

The stage show was, naturally, four Akkos in color-coded Shiny Chariot outfits, battling each other for attention. Excited mid-aughts J-pop blared over countless hidden speakers.

"Goodness," Lotte said.

"Alright," Sucy said, "you start questioning the ones on the left, I start on the right."


	3. Playing Indoor Games

"I will be the last light to go out at the party." -- Emperor Calus  
"Are you just a phantom in a mirror?" -- ibid.

* * *

 

After a brief argument, Sucy and Lotte agreed to just search the middle first. Sucy gestured for Lotte to follow just before they entered the arena, leading her to a fountain built around a statue of Akko titled OUR FOUNDER. Statue Akko's expression was unfocused and half-lidded, her mouth slack-jawed and leaking drool. At least it was an honest statue. Sucy felt around her dress's secret pockets, pulling out a myriad of ingredients and dumping them into the fountain.

"What are you doing?" Lotte said. The water soon turned a brackish yellow in color and thickened considerably, judging by how the fountain was now clogging up and spurting out golden glop. It acquired a smell--Lotte braced herself when she noticed the change, but it was actually rather pleasant. Very breakfasty.

"Brewing a curative," Sucy said. "Since we're operating on dream pacing, hopefully it'll be ready soon and not in a few months." She threw her bottles into the air around her, some of them landing with thick _splort_ s in the fountain, some crashing on the ground around her. "Anyhow, let's scope out that stage play. [I bet it's really sophisticated](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9tJUOTfsQg)."

The two witches tiptoed and elbowed their way to the third row, just as whatever performance was going on picked back up.

Blue Akko raised her blue Shiny Rod. "I'm Blue Akko! I'm the one who thinks Chariot's emotional performances are the best, like her 'Blue Danbue' set! That's why I'm blue! I mean, wait, lemme get in a reference--"

"I'm Red Akko," guess-who said, leaping in front of Blukko, "and I think that when she blew stuff up, that's when Chariot was coolest, you know? Like that dragon in the thing we saw live!"

"I'm Light Red Akko!" a lighter-color-coded-Akko said, leaping in front of her slightly-darker-color-coded twin. "I think the stunts were the coolest 'cause she was strong and stuff!"

"I'm Pink Akko!" a shrill Akko with a stuffed bra said, popping up from a trapdoor on stage precariously near the edge. "I used to imagine all the time like wow what if a spell went wrong and Chariot was NAKED ON STAGE WOULDN'T THAT BE COOL?!" She grabbed for her Chariot costume's bustline, but the other Akkos grabbed her and dragged her down.

"Boo!" Sucy said, "Let that one get naked!"

"Sucy, there's kids present!" Lotte said, pointing at a kid Akko watching open-mouthed as the fight unfold.

"Yes, and they're all just kid-looking mental projections of the legal-aged Akko," Sucy said. "So it's nothing they haven't seen. Hell, Akko was probably that old when she first imagined Chariot naked."

"...you're not wrong but that's really weird," Lotte said, nearly lost to the roar of the crowd.

"Better believe it is. Plus:" Sucy pointed at the gigantic movie screens on the back of the stage showing the scenario Pink Akko proposed. Mental Image Theater showed an exceptionally naked Chariot making an effort to cover her newfound nakedness up and not doing a very good job of it, prompting a movie-screen Akko--Akko as she was now, or at least Akko as she was when she had auburn hair--to jump from the audience onto the stage and rush her, flinging her clothes off and tackling her to the ground in a naked yuri smooch. The audience around the two witches cheered.

Lotte blushed and looked away from the screen. Thankfully, something distracted her from the embarrassment of watching a friend's sex fantasy play out on a mega-sized movie screen: a single Akko looking just as embarrassed as her, sandwiched between several Akkos of varying ages whistling and clapping and waving pro-Chariot signboards. With Mouse Akko's help spotting gaps in the crowd, Lotte made her way away from Sucy and towards the standout.

"Hello!" Lotte said.

The Akko was in a thick overcoat and a hood, in spite of the brisk summer air being only pleasantly cool. "Hey there," the Akko said.

"You're not into the dirty movie?" Lotte said.

"No," the Akko said, miserably.

"Oh, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it that way. I mean, that's interesting! Why aren't you?"

"I'm the Akko Who's Aware Chariot Is Also Ursula And I Don't Know What To Do About That."

Lotte only now noticed an older gentleman in a suit seated next to Ursulaware Akko. "Hello, young miss," he said with a dapper British accent. "I'm the ghost of Simon Westermarck and I think this is just plain fascinating." He popped a handful of popcorn kernels in his mouth.

"No you're not," Lotte said. "The Westermarck Effect was named for Edvard Westermarck, and he was Finnish." She swelled with national pride.

"...oh," Simon said. "Then I guess I'm just the man Akko imagined when she read about the Westermarck effect."

"Which I read about because I wasn't sure why I was suddenly feeling so weird about Chariot all of a sudden," Ursulaware Akko said. "Like--what should I feel?! It's like, she's a mother to me, but she's not really my mother, and she's _really really hot_ , but she means so much to me, but she's got boobies like..." She squeezed the air even as her blush took over most of her face. "I'm totally at a loss."

"Would you say you're feeling anxious?" Lotte said, equipping her bone wand. Phrasing.

"Why, yes, I would say that!" Ursulaware Akko said.

"Hold on to that feeling." Lotte tapped an imaginary podium and conducted spirit magic, singing a soothing song. Green light streaked from the helpful Akko fragment, coalescing into a ball over her head that popped into a tubby, weepy spirit. Lotte caught the spirit in her hand. "Here we go! Now we can find other anxious Akkos with this lil' guy's help!"

"Do I gotta?" the anxiety spirit said. "That makes me really nervous. I gots performance anxiety, you cracker-ass cracker."

"You'll do fine," Lotte said, petting his head.

"Hey, I'm anxious!" Mouse Akko said. "Why didn't you tap me for spirit... stuff?"

"That spell kinda hurts," Lotte said; indeed, Ursulaware Akko had turned pale and was leaning on Simon for support. "You've had it rough, so I didn't want to push you further," Lotte said, patting the mouse's head.

"Thanks, I guess," the mouse said, pouting. "Not like I don't want a magic spirit buddy pulled outta me..."

"Pull her panties off! Come on!" Sucy shouted at the stage. The Akkos were busy punching each other in whatever was in punching distance. An Akko referee--a Referakko, if you will--had joined in the fray, swinging a folding chair at Blue Akko. Akko had never watched wrestling but had definitely heard about it.

"Sucy!" Lotte said, holding the spirit in front of her.

"What it is, friend?" the anxiety spirit said, a sheepish grin on its chubby face.

"We have an out for finding problem Akkos! Isn't he cute?"

"Sure, whatever. I'll do my looking, you do yours."

"They're not gonna get naked on stage, Lotte, I mean Sucy, and two, Akko's taken!"

The entire party fell silent. A spotlight burned on Lotte's position.

"The fuck did you say?" Red Akko said.

"That... Akko... has a girlfriend!" Lotte said. "That's what I meant!"

"You fuckin' better!" Red Akko said. The party wound back up, a little hesitantly at first.

"'Oh, Sucy, watch out,'" Sucy said, not doing a very good job of mimicking Lotte, "'if you're not careful you'll hurt Akko's brain with your vandalism and junk!' That's what you sound like, you yellow-haired dumbass."

Lotte trembled. "Are... are you just going to be like this the entire time we're here? Call me names and make a fuss and--"

"And not set off Akko like you just did? Yes."

"Then--!" Lotte huffed. "Then me and Washington are going to go looking for Akko problems on our own! You can just go soak your head for all I care!" She hugged Washington--the anxiety spirit, named for the place that made Lotte the most nervous--and stormed off into the crowd.

Sucy dug a beer from a secret pocket and twisted the cap off. "Step one, complete." She took a sip and shuddered. "The hell is this? Root beer? ... Right. Akko's brain. And she's never had beer. Goddammit." She took a deep breath, then continued drinking. It wasn't bad root beer, at least.

A spider crawled up her shoulder; she offered it a taste of the bottle. It waved its pedipalp at her: nah, I'm good. "Suit yourself. Who do I have to talk to?"

* * *

In her heart of hearts, Lotte always wanted to be at the center of a Cowboy Bebop Gather-Information-check-montage kind of thing. Hell, she'd written a few for her epic crossover fanfic "See You, Space-Time Cowboy." But without the convenient edits for time, actually making a Gather Information check was more of a chore than she anticipated. Still, with Washington,[ it was doable at all](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXcBzCyiFpA), and so she floated through the party, hunting anxious Akkos for their wisdom.

She met an Akko at the juice bar, playing an N64 hooked up to an old TV perched on the bar and sipping from a virgin Pina Colada. "Yeah, I'm the Akko Who Can't Believe Studying Is So Boring And Takes So Long," she said. "I'd really rather be playing this N64 that I grew up with because video games are expensive and these old games are just fine. Just. Fine."

"Can you give me an insight into why Akko had a bad scary dream moment tonight?" Lotte said.

"Nope," Akko said. "Been playin' video games 'cause that's funner."

"Can I play too?" Washington said, wiggling his hand-stumps at the second controller sitting on the bar.

"Hell no! I need that for Robotron!"

Next, she made her way to a dance floor and approached an overweight Akko who was eating a giant bowl of jellybeans like cereal. "Hey, hi!" the Akko said. "I'm the Akko Who Stress Eats Like, Wow."

"So you're pretty stressed out right now, yeah?"

"Yuhhuh."

"So can you give us an idea what's doing it?"

She furrowed her brow and thought very hard while eating a spoonful of jelly beans. "Well... I'm pretty weirded out about... the stuff I'm not allowed to talk about."

"Not allowed?" Lotte said.

"What was that again we're not supposed to talk about?" Mouse Akko said from her perch on Lotte's head, waving her tail around. "I wasn't there for the meeting and I could use a refresher."

"Don't suppose there's somewhere quieter we could talk about things we're not supposed to talk about?"

"Like, quieter in Akko's brain? Or, wait, since we're, like, figments, maybe... is it like a 'corner of your mind' kinda deal?" She ditched the spoon and shoveled a handful of candies into her mouth. "Mmrrrph... this is too much to deal with!"

"It's fine," Lotte said, patting her on the back. "I'll be back if I think of something. I should think of something pretty soon!"

Lotte made her way past the fountain, not seeing the small black shape flick out of the water, grab an Akko by the neck, and drag her into the golden slurry. Not long after Lotte and Mouse Akko and Washington arrived at the Memory Theater, a four-room shack at the edge of the party. "Point me at one with an anxious Akko in it," Lotte said.

"We're gonna watch movies and see if that helps?" Washington said.

"No--we're gonna talk about stuff Akko doesn't want us talking about, but at a low volume in a movie theater, so we'll see if that sets her off or not."

"Oh... sure."

Lotte picked up a virgin margarita from the concession stand out front, followed Washington's suggestion, and took a seat next to the only Akko who had bothered showing up to this movie while a party was raging outside. Lotte took a sip that turned into an inhale that turned into a coughing fit within ten seconds of the movie starting.

'Cause the memory-movie was porn.

Said porn was a hazy intercut of actual internet porn Akko had watched--skipping to the good parts, interposing her own tweaks to the fantasy on top of the imagery--and how she imagined porn she had read. Many of the women--for it was almost entirely women in Akko's mind, beyond a few mostly-offscreen men giving some overacting women the business--had been replaced by Shiny Chariot.

Lotte looked to her left at an Akko, the only Akko in the theater. "So, uh... there's only one Akko who cares that Chariot is also Ursula?"

"No, I care," the Akko said, voice low and rasping. "That makes it even better. It's like incest except it's not so we can totally get away with it! Hi, I'm Dirty Dirty Pervert Akko, pleased to meet you." She held her hand out for a shake; Lotte leaned away from her.

"She's nearly twice your age, it's still not cool," Lotte said.

"Aaggh, I know, why take me out of the moment?" Pervert Akko said. "The moment is all I have nowadays."

"Knew it!" Washington said. "Anxiety up ins!"

"Could you tell me about what's got you anxious?" Lotte said, sotto voce. "Maybe that'll help."

Pervert Akko thought a moment. "Okay. If you shake my hand."

Lotte forced a smile and shook Pervakko's hand.

"Okay... so... I'm really not sure what to think about Chariot's new look, with the no-arms and all? Like I wanna support her, she's my favorite, the best, but I can't think about how she lost those arms and died a while withou--" Pervakko burst into tears and sobbed into her hands. "Ohh, God, those monsters! They ruined her! You might could say they popped my Cherry!" She waited a moment for Lotte's catchphrase; Lotte didn't feel the tic coming on, it seldom reacted to deliberate baiting. "...anyway, like I was sayin', why are the Taken so fucking--"

The roof exploded and a small army of Akkos in SWAT gear descended from the ceiling on those ceiling-descent cable things. "Yo, watch your fucking language!" the lead SWAkko said, smashing Pervakko in the back of the head with a submachine gun stock. Because it was a tiny folding wire stock it didn't do much, but Pervakko went along with it anyway.

"Thanks for the hit, it's making me feel better," Pervakko said. "A little pain really gets me going. Diana does this thing where--"

"Tell it to the rest of lockup, perv!" SWAkko said, and the group dragged her up with them as they slowly clambered back up their black helicopter ropes, flopping onto the roof breathless and panting once they were done. A tiny helicopter lowered a fresh batch of tarmac over the SWAT hole, closing it up.

The porn resumed.

"Well," Lotte said, "there's a word we should be avoiding."

"We gonna stay and watch?" Washington said. "Because if I'm gonna be real this is super vanilla and I'm disappointed."

"Oh, shush," Mouse Akko said, "vanilla is delicious. Even if it's at its best with a little chocolate syrup! A little chocolate syrup I call _naughtiness_. Man, there's this thing Diana did when--"

The tarmac hole reopened, just a little. "What was the thing that you were about to say?" one of the cops said.

"About... the way... Diana... you know..." She outlined a female body-shape with her paws and sensually nibbled the air around the shoulder.

The Akkop reeled down a tiny grasping mechanism which softly closed around Mouse Akko and lifted her helplessly into the air. "Hey, hey, what did I even say just now?!" she said, kicking and tumbling.

"Oh, I should've stopped that," Lotte said inwardly.

"Just zap them, cracker!" Washington said.

"But what if that leads to them attacking me and something bad happens?" Lotte said.

"Hey, hey!" Mouse Akko said, almost halfway to the cop. "They're taking me to Akko Jail where Akko keeps her thoughts she doesn't wanna think about all locked up! Find me and we'll figure this out or something good luck!" After a few more seconds she was in a tiny pair of mouse handcuffs. The cop gave Lotte a cautious middle finger and closed the ceiling back up.

"Well," Lotte said. "The good news is I think I have an idea."

"You gonna drink this?" Washington said, wrapping himself around Lotte's drink.

"You go ahead, I'm going to need a clear head for this."

"Still a virgin," Washington said, and sipped.

* * *

Sucy knocked on the glass door thrice. A butler Akko opened it. "Mmmmyello, misz?" she said, in an unplaceable and probably nonexistant accent Akko must think sounded fancy.

"Hello," Sucy said, hunched over more than usual, hands wringing, eye makeup swapped from purple to blue to make her look more innocent. "I was just visiting and I heard that you were having quite the good time in here. Can me and my spider friend visit you in the VIP room or is that too much for lil' ol' me to ask?"

Butler Akko struggled to retain her composure. "It's... it's not too much at all come in here before they fire me." She grabbed Sucy and yanked her in and closed the door hard enough to shatter it, for it was not shatterproof glass. "I'll get that, madames," Butler Akko said, and fetched a new door.

The VIP room was perched high above the party, looking over the surging crowds and the battling stage Akkos in a cozy, well-air-conditioned room with a crackling fireplace and soothing pop ballads played on vinyl record. The three VIP Akkos were seated in plush chairs around a low coffee table, sipping tea and soda.

"Hey there," one of the Akkos said, cautiously. She was clad in the Cinderella dress Akko wore that night Sucy let the Cupid Bee escape and do its thing.

"Wasn't expecting to see you here," another Akko said. This one wore the full Luna Nova dress uniform and had the Shiny Rod, or a reasonable facimile (for it was a plastic replica, not the ylem-and-tok'l construct of the true Claiomh Solais). "How's tricks up there in the waking world?"

"Wait," the last Akko said, holding up a hand. She wore a Shiny Chariot outfit in the normal colors, not a colored variation like the idiots onstage. "Have we really earned saying things like 'the waking world?' We're just, taking an Action Nap while Sucy and Lotte try to help us figure out what our dang problems are. We're not in the Dreamlands, we're just in our own head."

"What an articulate Akko," Sucy said, taking a seat in the Chariot Akko's lap, along her thighs. Chariot Akko straightened up in her seat. "Which one are you?"

"I'm The Akko Who's Totally Learned And Is Currently Learning Magic From Shiny Chariot, Bitches," she said, swelling with pride. "And you can take that to the bank. So please stop sitting on me and do the bank-take... thing." Sucy responded by scooching further up her lap.

"And I'm the Akko Who Bears The Shiny Rod," the Shiny-Rod-having Akko said.

"And I'm the Akko Who Loves Diana Cavendish," the dressed-up Akko said, swooning.

"But then, don't we all~" Learned Akko said.

All three Akkos sighed wistfully.

Sucy pursed her lips. "What an interesting third for your VIP room. You do love your friends a great deal, Akko."

"Yes, it's true!" Claiomh Solais Akko said, raising her magic weapon replica. "Love of friends just so happens to be the last node to unlock! Once it's unlocked, I dunno, some crazy shit's gonna happen and it' sgonna be great."

"Oh, is it now," Sucy said, putting an arm around ArticulAkko's shoulder, to her obvious discomfort. "I can't wait to see it. And just think, two of your oldest friends are here to help you out tonight. Maybe with our help you'll unlock the seventh Word and save the world and all that junk. Wouldn't you like to save the world? It is so in desperate need of saving right now."

The Akkos fell silent. The butler crept out the VIP box, closing the repaired door behind her good and tight. A clock ticked ahead a few slow seconds.

"You know," Love Akko said, "we don't have to think about such things right now."

"No, m'am," Rod Akko said.

"Yeah," Learn Akko said. "Also, my legs are starting to get numb? So please stand up."

Sucy lounged aggressively against Learned Akko. "Mm, I suppose. I don't suppose I could beg for a seat of my own?"

"Sure. Whatever. You can have the table if you want. But a lady's gotta be able to get up and jump like the song says and you're making it difficult."

"Al-right." Sucy languished on the coffee table, batting her visible eye. "It's so quiet and small in here. I don't suppose you ladies know a nicer place we can hang out?"

"We're hanging out?" Solais Akko said.

"Guess we are," Learned Akko said. "Like, you gonna tell her 'no?' She'll poison our asses."

"Poison--in your own mind?" Sucy said. "Perish the thought. I wouldn't be so sloppy as to throw around poisons in a mental construct. The chance for collateral damage is too great. I wouldn't want to tweak your thoughts too much, now, would I?"

Dianalove Akko thought on her words. "That's a load off my mind. Come to think of it, we have quite the lovely garden..."

* * *

Diana watched the three witches sleep. She checked the clock on the wall; it was approaching four in the morning. Little time had passed at all, in the grand scheme. Jasminka and the good doctor were taking a break between hands, Jasminka sipping some water from a bottle, the doctor consulting a tome.

"Sternberg," Diana said, splitting the silence, "is there any danger inside of Akko's mind?"

"There is a vanishingly small chance," he said. "If her episode was the result of sorcery, Lotte and Sucy may encounter the spell or entity that caused it. If they should perish in the metaphor, then we can send them back under once they awaken. If it should be necessary, we have you two for backup. But it shouldn't come to that. The window for the ritual to go wrong has passed. They are as safe as it is possible to be."

Diana cast her gaze on Swiss Miss. She recalled that tarantulas didn't weave web for the same reason smaller spiders did, but they had silk for their own purposes; Miss was weaving something on Akko, a pattern of web on her chest. It was a symbol of some kind, like a Celtic knot crossed with a fractal image.

"Stay vigilant, Ms. Cavendish," Sternberg said warmly.

Jasminka held out a little wrapped candy. "Cow Tail?" she said.

"Thank you," Diana said, taking her up on her offer. She pulled open the slip of wax paper wrapped around what proved to be a caramel wrapped around a glob of white icing or cream. She popped the candy in her mouth and bit; the icing or whatever it was rushed into her mouth while the caramel, on an initial chew, proved firm. She nodded and chewed, enjoying the contrast in textures. "This is very good. Very..."

The rush of fluid reminded her of something. She put the something out of her mind. It's not what you think it is. It's sugary and sweet and a gift from a friend. It is permissible to eat this.

"I like it," Diana said, after a gap.

Jasminka pat her back.

"Thank you."

* * *

"Did you see Akko Who Wants To Smoke Some Of Diana's Weed?" Akko Who Inquires As To The Well-Being Of Potential Stoner Akko said. "She was walking to the big show a while ago and she sorta vanished."

"Can't say I seen 'er," Akko Who Saw "Cocktail" And Wanted To Do That Flippy Bar Stuff said, polishing the obligatory glass of beer. She didn't even serve draft beer. Or "drought" as they spelled it in the UK for no clear reason. "Check by the fountain, maybe she's chilling out."

Well-Being-Stoner Akko took Flippy Akko's advice, hiking up the steps leading to and from the bar and to the Founder statue and fountain. No sooner did the shadow of the statue fall over her that she suddenly lost her breath; she stumbled, doubling over, gasping for air as she approached the fountain. She braced herself on its side and realized that her pained gasps for air achieved nothing. She may as well try to breathe from an empty balloon.

Something black-colored and fast burst from the thick yellow fluid, clamped down on her nose and mouth, and dragged her into the fountain.


	4. Last Love

"Where once I saw miracles, I now see monsters." -- Cmdr. Zivala  
"Every time I look, the Darkness just grows larger." —RECORD 345-CHASM-6736

* * *

 

The party's chill-out room was the Nap Room, accessed through a heavy set of double doors near the easternmost edge of the ballroom. Above the door was a logo of a sleeping Little Akko curled up on a velvet pillow with an oversized witch hat for a blanket. It was direly cute.

Lotte crept across the room, Washington held close to her chest. The room was a long hall of bunk beds, the walls and ceiling painted swirling shades of dark blue, little fans providing just the right amount of white noise, radios and speakers humming lullabies and soft music to help Akkos not yet in the grip of sleep get there. It was making Lotte sleepy, at that.

Washington pointed at a Little Akko lying on her side in a bottom bunk. She wore pale blue pajamas and had her arm around a plush Diana. Her expression was heavy, her mouth resting in a deep frown. She wasn't asleep, that's for sure. Lotte approached on tiptoes and knelt beside her. "Hello," Lotte said. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I guess," the Akkette said, not totally convinced.

"What's your name? I'm Lotte. The one you know."

"Oh, cool. I'm the, uhhhm... can I whisper it?"

"You can." Lotte put her hand to her ear and leaned in close.

"My name is Akko Who's Pretty Sure The Closet Monster Is Really Real," that Akko said. "The others always made fun of me except when they saw it moving. And now they just don't want me to talk about it at all."

Lotte nodded. "I have a plan on how to get things right. Things are pretty messed up around here, aren't they?"

Closet Akko nodded. "Everybody's scared and mad and they don't feel like thinking about stuff. If they do, they just get mad... or sad... or scared. Even if they think about Diana." She held up her Diana plush. "You like her, don't you?"

"I do," Lotte said, patting the doll's head.

"Me too. I love her. I saved her and she saved me." She cuddled up with the doll.

"Aww..." Lotte said. "Yes, this is a good idea. I mean--Akko, would you like to help me set Akko straight?"

"Yeah!" the little Akko said, sitting up fast enough she bonked her forehead against the support beams for the top bunk. "Ow..."

"Excellent! So just follow me and this'll tie itself up nice and neat."

* * *

The Elite Akkos led Sucy to what they called the Memory Garden. It was a small indoor garden, growing assorted flowers and a few bonsai trees under tiny glittering lights in imitation of stars in an indigo ceiling. A cobblestone path wove through the little place, with a single bench next to an obelisk covered in names.

"Here," exposited Love Akko as she spun like a Disney princess before the big award-bait musical number, "lies all the dreams and thoughts we've outgrown. It's like a graveyard but of the mind."

"Cool," Sucy said, trying to mean it. She slithered through the path and reached the end in a few seconds, taking a seat on the bench and examining the obelisk. It had a rather complimentary depiction of Akko astride a motorcycle, and at the very top above the list of names, a legend:

To All The Fine Folk We Had A Crush On  
"Sorry, But We've Got A Girlfriend Now"

"Scandalous," Sucy said.  
She scanned who was on it.

Yuko (Grade 3; she moved)  
Different Yuko (Grade 4; stole my lunch in 6th grade)  
Saito-san (Grade 4 teacher)  
Scarlet Johannsen  
The Nice Lady Who Plays Scarlet Witch, I'm Sorry I Forget Your Name  
Third Yuko (Grade 9+)  
Amanda O'Neill (girlfriend for three weeks)  
Honorable Mention: Cure Sunshine

"Hm. You're missing a few names here," Sucy said. "Then again, this is the former crush list. Does that mean you might still have a crush on...?"

"Shiny Chariot?" Love Akko said. "Admittedly, yes. I'm of two minds on the subject. I'm sure you've seen how badly I'm divided over it."

"Yes, obviously. And yet you think about her a lot more than you think of some things I could mention. Quite obsessively, in fact. It's almost as if you're amorously fixated on someone who isn't who you're supposed to be with."

"And yet," Rod Akko said, gesticulating with her Shiny Rod, "we're totally devoted to our hot witch girlfriend."

"Ah, sweet Diana..." mused Love Akko.

The Akkos all let out a sigh.

Sucy smiled. "Of course. Still. I suppose I should be glad I don't see my name on here. It makes me feel included."

"Wait," Learned Akko said. "You don't want us remembering you as a crush? I ain't surprised but I'm kinda weirded out you'd be that self-sacrificing."

"No, idiot, it means you still have a crush on me," Sucy said sweetly.

Love Akko cleared her throat. "'Still?'"

The air dropped a few degrees in temperature.

"I don't like those scare quotes," Sucy said.

"I never had a crush on you," Learned Akko said. "You're mean to me, like, really mean. You poison me like daily. I mean, you're my friend, and you got your reasons, but Jesus, I'd have to be fuckin' psychotic to have a crush on you."

"Diana never poisoned me," Love Akko said.

"She fuckin' shot you, though," Sucy said.

The lights flickered and went out.

"What?" Sucy said. "She did! The same day you met her!"

The lights stuttered back to life. The Akkos were clustered around the seated Love Akko, arm in arm. "Please watch your words, Sucy," Love Akko said, voice trembling. "Today's proven to be a very trying day."

"You're telling me," Sucy said, voice low and firm. "For one, it looks like I can't even mention Diana without your entire brain going into palpitations. Why is that, you think? For someone you're really in love with she causes you a lot of heartache."

"That's how it is with love," Love Akko said, resting her head against Learned Akko's side. "There's always pain. Love is a challenge, a... what's the word I'm looking for..."

Rod Akko started singing "Love is a Battlefield;" Learned Akko air-guitared and mouth-drumbeat...ed.

"Yes, that!" Love Akko said.

"The kind of battlefield where just thinking about someone makes you have a freakout in your sleep. I get what you're putting down." Sucy looked away. "I brewed a potion to heal your kidneys, you know. You remember that? You tried to heal me too, in that sleep of death I was nearly lost to completely... I haven't forgotten, you know. It has stayed with me so long..." She lounged closer to Love Akko, reaching to put her arm around her shoulder.

She could hear Akko narrow her eyes at her. "If you loved me so much you wouldn't poison me so much."

"My poison is love," Sucy said. "I'm making you stronger."

"You're making me burst into flames when I get wet," Love Akko said. "Or throw up live spiders. Or start levitating when I walk under ceiling fans! And one time you just straight-up gave me mono!"

"And I got you out of that PE test, didn't I~?"

"No! You didn't! Nelson never... she never..."

The lights snapped off and stayed off. Sparks fluttered to the ground. They were left in inky black; Sucy couldn't even see her hands in front of her face, only feel where they should be.

There was breathing from somewhere in the dark, breathing that was not any of theirs.

"We should be leaving," Rod Akko said. The Shiny Rod formed into a brilliant many-tined torch, casting a green glow around them. "Thank you so damn much for being lovely company." She flinched. "Oh, and Lotte just got arrested. Funderful! What the hell is up with you two tonight?"

"Arrested?" Sucy said.

* * *

Lotte jumped onto a bench in the bar. She picked up Closet Akko and sat her on her shoulders; Closet Akko sat her Diana doll on her own shoulders likewise, and Washington stood on top of the doll's head. It was a majestic stack, too adorable for words. Lotte had put two and two together and realized that the cops couldn't possibly visit the hurt on someone as cute as Closet Monster Akko.

"Hello!" Lotte said. A dozen Akko heads turned towards her. "Today, I'd like to talk about... space monst--"

"NGAHHH!" a Akkop said, tackling Lotte from the side hard enough to dislodge Closet Akko entirely. Another cop caught her with a pillow before she could fall more than a few feet; meanwhile Lotte skidded face-down on cold floor tile for several meters. "Not so fuckin' fast, bitch!" the Akkop said, slapping four handcuffs on her wrist and forearm and four more on her ankles and lower calves.

"Yo, watch the goddamn language!" the second cop said, covering Closet Akko's ears (and holding her up by her head in what didn't look like a comfortable or sustainable way).

"Fine, whatever!" the first said, slinging Lotte over her shoulder. "Let's just lock these bi... these _thots_ up where they belong."

"I mean, I _am_ just a thought..." Closet Akko said.

The next few minutes weren't the most comprehensible for Lotte; might've been the dream-concussion or the feeling that her nose had been smashed flat. The cops took them to a police station, which is to say a police room on the opposite wall and the entire party room away from the nap room. Her cop threw her into a tiled room; an Akko with a firehose sprayed her down with freezing-cold water.

"It's a mad-- _bblrbrlb_!" Lotte said, water and nose-blood filling her mouth as she tried to quote a movie.

Another Akko picked her up off the floor and threw her into the next room, where she miraculously landed upright in front of a height chart and before a camera manned by a Camerakko.

"Smile for the birdie, creep," Camerakko said, waving a plush Alcor--her own plush Alcor, in fact--for Lotte to smile at.

"Wait!" the cop from the previous room said, bursting in. "She's still cuffed! She can't hold her mug shot sign!"

"Well, I don't have any keys or anything, so don't ask me about that shit!" Camerakko said. "Can you hold up her sign or something?"

"No, man I can't," Previous Akko said. "People will think she has three or more arms if we do that. Plus, my hands don't look nothin' like hers, so people are gonna be like, 'shit, it's one of those glowy multiarm thi...'"

The lights flickered.

"So," Previous Akko said, "yeah, that's not an option."

"Wait," Camerakko said. "Your have hands, right?"

"Yeah?"

"And you're holdin' Lotte's sign?"

"Yahuh."

"Listen closely," Camerakko said, squeezing the Alcor plush for emphasis.

Previous Akko threw Lotte's sign into camera range on three. It faced the wrong way and concealed Lotte's face. And so the task was done and Lotte, soaking wet and heavily handcuffed, tasted concrete once more when Camerakko and Previous Akko flung her into the jail cell. "Nighty night, cracker!" Previous Akko said, and slammed the door shut.

"I think I have friction burn on my face," Lotte said, squinting through her heavily-scratched glasses. She flopped around onto her back and sat up.

"Are you okay?" Closet Akko said, running up to her. She was dry and wearing a prison black-and-white-stripe T-shirt over her jammies. Washington rode on her shoulder and sported a prisoner cap. Come to think of it, even her Diana doll had a shirt and cap too.

"I don't think I'm great," Lotte said. "Can you take my wand off my belt and put it in my mouth so I can get these cuffs off?"

Within a few minutes the cuffs were off. She rubbed her tender skin. "They didn't have to do 'em so tight..." she said. "Agh. I remember reading some actor has permanent scars from how long he had to wear cuffs."

"Lemme kiss 'em better," Closet Akko said, taking Lotte's arm and kissing her wrist. Some of the gen pop behind them "aww"ed.

"Thank you," Lotte said, smiling. She repaired her glasses and turned to scope out their cellmates. There were about a dozen Akkos pacing, playing the Shiny Chariot card game, drinking pruno straight from the bag, or just milling around and looking tough.

She saw Mouse Akko in a tiny prison shirt and cap lying on the sole bed in the cell, a bunk attached to the wall. She tapped her mouse toe impatiently. "Took you long enough," Mouse Akko said.

"Sorry," Lotte said. "It took a moment to get some cover. I thought they'd treat me nicer if I had a cute Akko with me."

"They gave me a cookie and said I was getting time out," Closet Monster Akko said.

Lotte sighed. "Well, I was half-right."

"Not the right half," a dejected Akko said. She was sitting near the bars of the cell, looking out on the single guard dozing in her chair. "It's been a long, quiet few months."

"Only if you _suck_!" an Akko in an entire floppy bear skin said. She pulled a chainsaw from behind her back and revved it up. "I'm the Akko Who Loves Murder! I like how fun it is and how cool you are if you do it! My favorite part is when the other guy feels the ultimate agony and then _nothing at all_!"

The sad Akko groaned.

"Washington," Lotte said, "can you point me to the most anxious Akkos here?"

"Hmm," Washington said, rubbing his round chin. "If I had to pinpoint, I would say every last one of them are very anxious and also there's like a boatload even more anxious Akkos somewhere below us in that ground that we've heard so much about."

"Wait, the Akkos Under The Stairs?" an Akko said. "Those chicks are legend!"

"I," a tall, broad-shouldered Akko said, "have been seeking them since I've been locked up." She flipped her long, luxurious Chariot-red hair. "I'm the Akko Who's A Hero. The Aggregate Lordess has refused to let me out for some time. Surely you've noticed a change in her behavior as of late!"

"I have," Lotte said. "In fact, I've been looking for clues as to the source of why she's been so cagey. You know she had a panic attack, right?"

"I do!" Herokko said. "I've been trying to piece this together myself. What's your hypothesis, friend?"

"Sucy figured it was PTSD. I think she's afraid of the aliens coming back, and I can't blame her for that. But something isn't quite adding up. I feel like there's something I'm not getting... maybe Sucy has it. Something else is getting at her..."

"Like me," Mouse Akko said. "I was talking about biting and Diana doing it. For example."

"I suppose it's dumb to ask if any of you can just tell me about it?" Lotte said.

"I'm afraid that doesn't fit the metaphor!" Herokko said, crossing her arms in frustration(? was she just trying to look bigger and more heroic?). "Akko doesn't want to understand her own problems because understanding makes it hurt more! She's trying to force them down--but inevitably that hard rain's going to fall and we're all going to be washed away! It is imperative we solve this mystery!"

Lotte turned to Murdakko. "Hey, can that chainsaw cut through the floor?"

"Why..." Murdakko said. She jabbed the chainsaw into the floor; to her surprise it chewed straight through. "Ohhhhh!" she said. "It's like a super chainsaw 'cause that's how chainsaws feel in my hands! I get it!" She cut a good-sized hole in the floor; a round chunk of concrete fell into the darkness and shattered. Once the sound stopped echoing, another sound replaced it: a steady, meaty thump.

"Well," Lotte said, inching her way to the hole--"--phrasing!"

"Speaking of mental illness," Herokko said, "have you considered that may be a form of Tourette's? You seem to blurt it out even when nobody's said anything."

"I've wondered about that," Lotte said. "But we have more... uh... well... there's that hole we should go down."

"I ain't goin'," Washington said. "It's messed up down there."

"Will anyone help lower me?" Lotte said.

Murdakko smiled too widely at her.

Lotte attempted a smile back. "Thank you."

With a little help from Murdakko's bear pelt, clinging on to one of its floppy empty arms as she lowered her down, Lotte set foot in the dark space below the cell. A single bare bulb hung from the ceiling, casting a shadowy illumination onto the people inside. The five people--five Akkos, all with ghost-white, silky, fragile hair--spread evenly, all but one pressed around the walls of the cell, though there were no chains holding them there.

One Akko pounded her head against the wall, against a thick smear of blood, some congealed, some fresh and dripping in long streaks down the wall. One Akko sat in a messy heap, staring at her own trembling hands, pupils pinpricks. One Akko scraped an image onto the wall, a symbol: a curved V with four curved lines converging to form four diamonds and three towers in the space between the Vs. An Akko lying on the ground, eyes closed, breathing shallow. And one Akko waiting for her not far from where Lotte landed on the pile of crumbled concrete. This last one was haggard, her eyes heavy with bags.

"Hey," the last said.

Lotte found her voice: "Who are you?"

"Well." The speaking Akko pointed at the others in the order Lotte had taken them in.

"The Akko Who Knows She Could've Stopped It If She'd Been Brave Enough.

"The Akko Who's Murdered People And All She Can Think About Is What It Felt Like To Feel Someone Die Even If That Someone Wasn't Human.

"The Akko Who Was Taken.

"The Akko Who Knows What Death Feels Like And There Was Nothing After It, Not Heaven, Not Hell, Not Anything, And Every Day She Thinks It's A Better Idea To Just Go To Sleep And Never Wake Up.

"And me." She put her hand on her chest. "Akko."

* * *

Akko's skin was heavy with perspiration. Her breathing was irregular. Jasminka lay a wet rag across her head, gently so as to not wake her. She hummed [a Russian lullaby](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5gUFYxS-O0). Next to Akko, Lotte's brow furrowed; she tossed and turned, pulling the blanket Jasminka had laid across the sleepers over to herself. Sucy's expression was unchanged, tranquil.

"Something's happening," Diana said. "What's happening? Can you tell?"

"Not from here," Dr. Sternbeg said. "Akko is unarmed, yes? No wand, no Rod? No knife secreted away on her person?"

"No, doctor. I made sure."

"Good. If she wakes up in a panic, and it's PTSD panic, she may try to harm one or all of you. Be prepared. And be gentle. We don't want anyone being hurt."

"No sir." Diana wiped the sweat from her brow. For how chilly it got in Luna Nova at night, she was terribly warm.

* * *

"Here," Love Akko said, suddenly realizing she needed a good chestful of air. It was getting terribly warm in the party.

The Big Three and Sucy stood at the top of the steps leading into the amphitheater around the stage where the color-coded Akkos were taking a breather from what had turned into a professional wrestling match.

"Really?" Sucy said. "This show is boring. No tits have popped out, not even once. I can guarantee."

"I don't need breasts right now," Love Akko said, hiking up her skirt. "I just need to not think very hard about anything."

"Oh," Sucy said. "May I propose something?"

"Is it something that's gonna make us feel worse?" Rod Akko said; with a chopping motion it went from cheap-rod-replica to cheap-axe-replica. "Because I'm not gonna like it if you bring up the thing that you brought up like a bitch."

"I swear I won't," Sucy said. "It's a healing song. A song of love. You know I love showmanship, yeah?"

Learned Akko bit her knuckle. "You promise," she said.

"I promise," Sucy said. And she didn't lie.

"Okay. But--" Rod Akko gave the eyes-on-you gesture. "One slip-up and you ain't even gonna see the inside of a jail cell. 'Cause you're gonna see an explosion and you'll sleep-die and probably wake up unharmed or some stuff. I get that feeling, you know? Like that's gonna happen. If it comes to that. Which it better not... bitch."

"Perish the thought," Sucy said, with a fey dismissive gesture. She slithered away, equipping a potion vial in each hand; she poured it down the stairs as she walked, flowers growing where the potion dripped, magic butterflies lazily drifting into the air.

Love Akko took a seat in the VIP chairs--the same seat Akko took at Shiny Chariot's performance. The other Big Two sat next to her in the mom and dad positions.

Referakko stepped to the front of the stage and spoke into her handheld mic: "Ladies and... it's really just ladies, I'm here to announce that Akk Kogan's Rock'n Wrestling is now proceeding to the Rock'n section of the evening. Please, engage in a cautious but engaging round of applause for Sucy Manbavaran!"

She dropped the mic, a stand erupting out of the floorboards to catch it before it landed. Sucy slipped into place, waving. She accessorized her dress with some makeup swiped from backstage, a blue stripe across her mouth and eye(s?). "Howdy, howdy," she said into the mic. She waited for additional applause, of which there was none, and huffed. "Well. I suppose there's not a lot of point in waiting. Ladies, or should I say Akko, I've got something to say..." She took the mic in hand.

Rod and Learned Akko took a hold of Love Akko's arms, ready just in case she needed a comforting.

"You're too full of love to keep it all cooped up. Frustrated, incapable of really feeling it unbidden and without shame--it's all just heartbreaking. You know?" She kissed the microphone. "So let me tell you something. I have a love for you that will never exhaust. In fact, I think I have just the song to express it."

A platform lifted a seated, extra-long-haired Akko in a tie-dyed shirt and bell bottoms onto the stage. Guitakko strummed away.

"Good, good..." Sucy took a deep breath. "[Late at night when all the world is sleeping](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YfUUn7gqvY)..."

It was a soft song, kitschy, but gentle and, especially coming from Sucy, sincere. She locked gaze with Love Akko, and while Sucy wasn't an especially active singer, she did get her move on, her long spider-silk skirt sweeping the stage. The song was as close to the opposite of what Akko thought of as Sucy that it was somehow more surreal than the other weird shit going around in her dreamland. She was pretty certain Sucy only listened to goth metal, pornogrind, and songs about cum.

Sucy's eyes flicked away briefly. "That Akko Who Feels Love," Sucy said, interrupting the song, "won't you come up here a moment? To the stage, I mean." She gestured to the aisle now framed on either side by flowers.

Akkos all around her cheered. Love Akko conferred with her allies. "Is she... is this a love confession?"

"Looks like, man," Rod Akko said.

"Maybe you could humor her?" Learned Akko said. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"As long as I don't drink anything she gives me," Love Akko said. "Alright, you've convinced me. Wish me luck."

Guitakko kept the bridge going as The Akko Who Loves Diana Cavendish edged past a lot of Akkos cheering her own and shouting encouragement, skirt drawn up to her knees for mobility and to avoid spilled soda. She stepped over the flowers and onto the stairs. She set for the stage as Sucy continued her song. She didn't hear or see that which was slipping down the stairs behind her.

"I still can't believe, that you came up to me, and said... 'I love you,'" Sucy sang. "I love you too." She wasn't looking at Love Akko anymore.

Love Akko took a deep breath to slow her hammering heart. There was no breath to take. It was as if an anti-bubble of no-air had encompassed her head. She stumbled forward, as if trying to catch the air she'd foolishly let go instead of holding. She almost tripped; an Akko reached to grab her, but a flower grew several feet taller and wrapped tight around the Helpful Harriet's arm, locking her in place.

Love Akko stumbled to the ground, gasping for a breath that wouldn't be taken. What was happening? And why?

She looked around, perhaps for a convenient tank of oxygen, and saw the thing coming for her.

It was sort of like a man in shape. It had two legs and two arms and a torso and something like a head. Its skin was supple, wrinkly, and black, like a catfish, and it glistened with a golden wet sheen. A pair of rounded wings, like a manta ray's, grew from its back. Its head was smooth and featureless. It was making a noise with the thing that grew from its face in lieu of eyes or a nose or a mouth, a trunk that reached to its knees. Everyone else around her could smell it; it smelled like treacle.

It reached for her with its trunk, which flared at the end like a horn. It fit snugly over her mouth and nose, and the thing breathed for her.

Sucy sang though the words were lost to the screaming crowd all trying and failing to get past the rapidly-growing plant barrier to save Love Akko, and though Guitakko dropped her guitar in shock.

"And there's nowhere in the world I'd rather be," Sucy sang as Shugoran breathed and breathed and breathed, "than here in my room, dreaming with you... endlessly."

Love Akko's eyes rolled back into her head. A bruise-color spread across her face. With a soft pop, Shugoran freed its trunk from her face. A length of wet pink-red tissue--the remains of her breathing tube--flopped out of Love Akko's mouth as her lifeless body flopped against the stairs, dead as much from shock as trauma. Shugoran gulped down the rest of her lights.

Speaking of: nearly all of them shattered at once. The ballroom was cast into an eerie blue glow as phantom emergency lights flooded the area.

"And that is one obstacle dealt with," Sucy purred, brushing shards of glass from her shoulder. "Thank you, gents, it's been a pleasure." She saluted the panicking mass.

"Dude!" Pink Akko said. "You fucking killed the Diana Who Loves, I mean the Akko Who--"

"Shut the fuck up," Sucy said, still into the mic. "I terminated a thought process. You're not real. None of you are real. You're fucking metaphors for Akko's fucked-up head. I'm cleaning house and getting her shit in order. You got it?" She pointed at Pink Akko. "Don't think I'd hesitate to terminate you either, pinkie. She can be done fantasizing about Chariot, too. That'd knock out half the crap right away, come to think of it..." She whistled, blessedly not into the mic. "Shugoran, I've got another meal for you."

Shugoran shambled over Love Akko's corpse. It whimpered, a reedy, pathetic noise from deep in its trunk. Moving outside the nutrient bath was difficult. It didn't have an easy time breathing, perhaps ironically. It pointed its trunk at Pink Akko and flared the pad at the end of its trunk; she felt the absence of air. Her fellow color-coded Akkos exchanged glances, nodded, and took turns giving rescue breaths to their rival-turned-friend, buying her time.

"Listen," Sucy said, addressing the still-heavily-freaking-out audience, "I know it looks bad. And I, well, you can tell I'm frustrated. But look. You can't even hear Diana's name without freaking out unless you say it in the most distant, airy way possible. I bring up even a little bit about Diana that you don't like thinking about and you have a little panic attack. That's not love, is it? You don't really love her. It's Stockholm syndrome. She's got a hold on you and she ain't letting go. But you've got an exit and she's standing right here. So how about you stop worrying about a metaphor for me purging the fake-ass love out of Akko's heart, and you start raising your arms and worshiping your new savior and, dare I propose, new girlfriend, Sucy Manb--the fuck?!"

She dove out of the way of a chunk of police station crashing onto the stage where she stood.

Lotte, still soaked, stood atop Washington's shoulders, arms crossed; next to her was Hero Akko, arms also crossed. It was a pretty cool pose, she had to admit. "Hello, Sucy," she said, firmly. "Guess who just found the core of Akko's anxiety? And, relatedly, enough anxiety to give one of my little friends a big boost?"

"'Ey," Washington said. He was now twenty feet tall and had more chunks of police station and unconscious Akkops where that came from. He flung one at Sugoran while he was at it; the poor sap exploded like a popped pimple under the half ton of stone. Pink Akko breathed freely again, taking greedy gulps of air.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Sucy said. "I'm fixing things, too! Can't you tell?"

"From what I can tell you just killed an Akko and you're trying to give some kind of disgusting speech about why Akko should love you for it!"

"Well... isn't that how it works?" Sucy said. "That's probably how it worked for Diana! She saved Akko or some shit like that and now Akko follows her around like a kicked puppy."

The entire world shook.

"That wasn't me," Sucy said.

"No, it wasn't," Lotte said. She gestured to Washington's feet. 

Akko, the true Akko at the heart of the metaphor, was trembling. Closet Akko hugged her waist, squeezing her Diana doll into her belly. The other escapee Akkos gathered around her, putting hands on her for support. Except for Murder Akko, she was idling her chainsaw and waiting for anyone or anything to start getting frisky.

"Sucy," Akko said. It was too soft to be heard that far away, and yet Sucy heard it. "Why did you do that?"

"Because somebody needs to clear your fucking head, Akko!" Sucy fumbled to her feet. "I saw you get all lovey-dovey with Diana that first night. I thought, okay, she'll get it out of her system. And you didn't. You just kept--you just kept at it! It's sickening! You've latched onto her like a security blanket! She's not what you need, Akko! You need someone who'll put you through your paces, not turn you into a wet-nurse for some bitch who can't even eat properly because ooh, spooky, _the Hive made me eat people_."

The world shook again, harder. Akko was crying.

"Sucy, stop it--" Lotte said.

"Fuck you," Sucy said. "Fuck you, you yellow-hair bitch! You just watch her, watch her squander herself, and all you do is say 'good job, Akko, nice job licking those sick bitch boots!' Whatever. If Diana was such a badass she'd have had a thick-cut ham steak the next day. Every day Akko wastes on Diana is a waste of her potential. You could be with me. Why aren't you with me?!"

Akko said nothing.

"Was that time you saved my fucking life not special enough? Was it not enough I've always fucking been there? Did I not toughen you up with regular poisonings? You could shake off rattlesnake venom if you pushed yourself, guaranteed, and that's me, all me. You're just another fucking pet dog to Diana, panting at her heels..."

There wasn't a quake.

"And why? Why are you afraid of her? If she's such a pussy she couldn't even say no to the Taken King."

A sharp whistling sound split the air behind Sucy; it was like a nuclear reactor taking a harsh breath. The air pressure went haywire; Sucy's ears popped even in the dream. The blight shard broke, and someone was standing behind Sucy.

Lotte's hand went over her mouth.

The crowd fell silent.

Sucy turned and looked and her visible eye bugged.

The glowing figure...

No, they weren't glowing. That wasn't light. Their limbs weren't illuminated. The burning cyclopean eye was not burning with fire. They were all shades of darkness.

Taken Diana smiled.

"Akko?" Lotte whispered. "Did... did this happen?"

"You were fucking Taken," Sucy said. "You were fucking Taken?!"

"I was," Diana said. "I was insufficiently perfect. And then... everything that didn't matter, He pared away."

She seized Sucy's head. Her mouth gaped wide; she clamped it over Sucy's visible eye. The last thing Sucy saw in the dream was Taken Diana's tongue slip under her eye, popping it free from the socket. She bit.

Sucy fell to her knees, Taken Diana staying with her, chewing, swallowing, kissing the empty socket. "I was the Maw of Oryx. You are the half-breed child of two dream parasites. You were born nothing and will die nothing."

"please mommy don't it hurts" Sucy babbled. Memories flooded her head. Memories she'd wanted to forget and never could.

"That ache you feel..." She swept aside Sucy's hair. Her concealed eye socket was empty; it had been since her mother had bitten it out when she was eight. A Tcho-Tcho rite of passage. Her fathers had done the actual eating, of course. "You were taught the Sword Logic a long time ago. And you failed to learn the lesson. _Tierasud akitandat._ Those blessed with strength may feed with impunity on the helpless." She licked her ichor-stained teeth. "You will be my meal, subcr--"

A bolt of mana struck her shoulder, rebounding off her energy shield. She looked away from Sucy, who in her grasp was limp as a doll.

"Leave her alone!" Lotte shouted. Akko had collapsed into a sobbing wreck, her other aspects gathered around her in a protective formation.

"Lemme kill her lemme kill her lemme kill her!" Murder Akko said.

"Yes, obviously!" Lotte said.

"Hell yeah let's kill her!" the color-coded Akkos said, wielding sledgehammers and folding chairs. Red Akko led the charge for nearly a second before a bolt of indigo energy streaked from backstage and cut her arm off at the bicep. She stumbled, staring in mute shock at the injury, before a hail of fire sliced her to pieces.

Hive Acolytes marched from backstage, shredder guns in hand. They were taller than every person and Akko-aspect present. Three green-glowing eyes burned in their sockets; rugged, ridged armor grew from the sides of their heads, their shoulders, and hips. Tattered robes emblazoned with white smears of paint hung from jutting bones and under muscles.

Blue Akko swung a sledgehammer at one, catching it in the stomach; two other Acolytes clamped down on her arms and the one she struck jabbed the bulky curve of its weapon into her stomach and fired until the barrel was visible through the hole it gouged. The other two died moments later.

Taken Diana stroked Sucy's tear- and purple-ichor-stained face. "Come and kill me," she cooed, "if you can."

Lotte briefly considered her options. Maybe they could wake up now. Lose. Get some water. Take some strong, strong sleeping pills and let the professionals take over. They could just leave Akko in the grips of this panic attack 'til she could be medically sedated and live a half-life of waking and dreaming terror until she found something like normalcy.

Or she could fight 'til there was nothing left to fight.

She clenched her fist and aimed her wand. "Charge," she said.


	5. My Innermost Apocalypse (1)

"YOU WILL DREAM OF TEETH AND NOTHING ELSE" -- Voidfang Vestments  
"I, the child become [herald|death], record these words. They are not of the Sorrow. They are mine." -- [EXPUNGED]

* * *

 

Lotte aimed her wand at Taken Diana; a smooth line cut into its surface served as a sight in lieu of a modern wand's tines. More Acolytes swarmed the stage, shredder rifles casting energy bolts at prisoner-Akkos ready for battle, at civilian-Akkos fleeing the stands, and her and Washington as Washington waded through the retreating crowds, lining up his next throw.

The witch cast her spell with a soft breath: " _Pidä henkilö_."

Spirits of wind solidified from the air around Taken Diana, stretching like wads of pink taffy around her and Sucy, locking them both in place in a shell of hardened ectoplasm. Taken Diana didn't budge; she simply glared at Lotte through slats in the spirit barrier.

Washington flung a boulder and a cop at the Acolytes; one was crushed, another had their shooting-arm clipped by the same chunk of precinct. The color-coded Akkos were all dead, so there was no chance of friendly fire. The survivors took aim at Lotte and fired. Two bolts of purple light streaked past Lotte's head, and two lanced through her chest.

Breathing became difficult. Standing up moreso. She slipped and fell from Washington's head as he advanced through the stadium seats; Herokko lunged to grab her but her hand clenched nothing but the air by Lotte's ankle as she plummeted. She hit a bench side-on, her arm tactilly cracking as it hit the thin edge of the seat, her weight and the fall yanking a section of the cheap plastic seats out of position into a steep bend.

Here she nested. She heard screaming. She heard lightning. She felt small hands tugging against her dead weight; she felt her lungs burn as she tried to tell little Closet Monster Akko to leave her, she would be fine when she woke up. She tasted bloody foam on her tongue.

She felt much stronger hands lift her up; bony talons dug into her good arm and with a chuffing sound a Hive Acolyte dragged her down the benches. She glanced up, or tried to; she saw it blast its way through Sucy's potion-barrier, the plants now aflame and dying, withering to ash enrobed in indigo flames.

Everything hurt, and for a moment, her consciousness slipped.

* * *

"Doctor..." Diana said, tilting the viewing globe down at her sleeping friends.

Akko was bucking in her sleep, soaked with sweat like a cold glass on a hot day; Swiss Miss struggled to keep a hold of her chest, her eight legs clinging to the web-symbols she'd woven across Akko's body. Lotte was curled up, trembling and whimpering. Sucy's eyes--well, her visible eye, at least--were/was, but her pupils were dilated and unmoving.

"This... should not be happening," Sternberg said.

"Is it a curse? Is it space magic?!" Jasminka said, cuddling Forever Peace close to her chest.

"No. I've read about this..." Sternberg flipped through a weighty tome close at hand. "This looks like deliberate sabotage."

"Delib--deliberately?!" Diana said. "Why? How?"

"Why, we can only speculate. How..." The doctor settled on a page. "In brief, dream-healing spells project one's consciousness into another's. The more consciousnesses which are integrated, the more potential there is for a cataclysmic anxiety attack or similar deleterious effect. I presumed there would be no trouble, that her friends meant nothing but the best and would do anything to help her feel better. One or both of them must have betrayed Akko's trust."

Diana drew Rose. "I'm going in."

"Please, don't," Sternberg said. "If this plays out, they will all suffer a considerable traumatic event, but they will be alive and we can help them... although our work will be cut out for us. If you should be under, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they could trigger a seizure."

Diana clenched her wand. "Alright."

"That said... I believe now it is Swiss Miss's turn to help."

The spider clamored up to Akko's face, struggling to keep a hold of her sweat-soaked body as she thrashed about in her nightmare; Jasminka stepped in, picking her up off of Akko and setting her back down on Akko's face. Missy locked herself in and entered a state of trance just as Sucy burst awake, gasping for breath.

* * *

Lotte struggled to wake up. It was Closet Monster Akko's voice that pulled her from the brink. "--don't go! We need your help, Lotte! Please, stay with us!"

"I'm... I'm here..." Lotte said, struggling to resolve the blur of her vision into a coherent image. Her glasses had several long cracks, but she could see through them. She soon regretted that they were intact enough to work.

Washington was nowhere to be seen; a pile of dropped debris marked where something had destroyed him. Akko's phantasms were dead or dying. Their echoing screams and the sound of plasma fire and black magic and the hammering of massive limbs echoed; smoke rose to the ceiling, choking and black. And she was trapped on the stage, her arms and legs bound into a bony resin frame forcing her into a kneeling position.  Her wounds were plugged with the same stuff; each breath brought a sharp pain as her guts pressed against the stiff, textured material.

Little Akko was to her right, and to her right was Sucy, and past her, waiting, was Taken Diana. And at her feet, red-faced and sobbing, was Akko.

The core Akko, the haggard white-haired Akko from the secret room below the prison.

"It's beautiful," Taken Diana said. "Your friends came under the pretense of helping you, and they let me out to play. Isn't that what friends are for? Letting you down. Setting you up for a fall. Hurting you... and dying." She stepped over to Sucy; she tilted her head upward and pushed her hair back behind her ear.

Lotte saw glints of chewed muscle and wet bone before she looked away. From behind her, an enormous claw, twice the size of an Acolyte's, well-able to crush her head to paste with a flexing of dusty tendon, took her head in its palm and turned her to look at what the nightmare-Diana had done to Sucy.

"Am I right?" Taken Diana said.

[" _Kill 'e_ ," Sucy whimpered.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MN6sfJ1qFQg)

"You're right," Akko said. She didn't look. Taken Diana didn't make her.

"Akko," Lotte said, trying not to stare at the ruin of Sucy's face. "You have to be strong. You're the strongest woman I've ever met, you can--you can stop this."

"I can't," Akko said. "I'm done. I'm done being strong. I just want to close my eyes and never wake up. I just want to stop... being."

Taken Diana purred. "You're a poet, child. May I murder Sucy?"

Akko was silent.

"She hurt you so badly, Akko. Just think... without her, we wouldn't have crashed the party. Not for a while, anyway. And why was that, Sucy? Because you..."

" _Lo'e her_."

"What a gift is love..." Taken Diana said. There was a gun in her hand, not an alien magitech weapon, not her thorned wand, but a simple handgun. "Your love would please the Hive. Would you kill her if it would make her stronger, Sucy?"

" _Yes_." Sucy shuddered. " _I want you to 'e great. I want you._ "

"As Oryx slew Xivu Arath; as Xivu Arath slew Savathun; as Savathun slew Oryx; endless was the dance, so well were their deaths hidden, and each made the other more powerful. This is the love of the Sword Logic." She placed the gun under Sucy's chin, the barrel pointed at her throat. "Remember this, Akko? It was Andrew that time, but..."

She fired. The noise Sucy made stayed with Lotte the rest of her life. Sucy, against all hope and reason, tried to live, and she vanished from the dreamworld, leaving a bloodied frame behind.

* * *

Sucy rolled off the couch, landing on the floor with a thump. Diana rushed to her. "You're safe," Diana said. "You're not being--"

Sucy raised her head, and for the first time Diana saw what lay behind the curtain of hair she wore over her left eye. Her left eye was a featureless, clear glass replacement. "Mama?" she said. "Is it done? Is it done?"

Diana took a deep breath. "You're not with your mother. You're with us."

Sucy waved her hand over her face. "I can't see, mama. I can't see..."

Diana put her own hand before her eyes, raising three fingers. "How many?"

"Three..."

"You can see. You're fine. Please, deep breaths. You're safe. You're out. Is it alright if I touch you?"

"Don't. Don't..." She covered her chest and crotch reflexively. She started crying. "Don't wanna... don't wanna..."

A vast and awful gulf between points of information linked together in her mind, and Diana's heart broke, and she sobbed, silently, into the cold space hanging between them.0

* * *

Closet Monster Akko bawled. "Di-a-naaa! I want _Di-a-naaaa!_ "

"I'm here," Taken Diana said, touching her face. Little Akko shook her head away with the insistent vigor only a small child can manage. "It's alright. It's alright, darling... everybody dies in their nightmares. This won't take long, and then you'll never have to dream again."

"Akko, please!" Lotte said. Her heart was hammering. Everything felt weak. "You can stop her! You can! This is your dream, this is your mind! You don't have to let this happen!"

"I can't stop it," Akko said. Her voice was flat, her tone even. It was the most alien sound that could come from Akko's mouth. "I tried. I tried. It always breaks through. And it always hurts. Because... they're up there. I know they are. The Hive... the Taken... they're up there and they can be doing anything and they never run out, they never stop coming, and... Oryx is their king. I saw him, Lotte. I saw Oryx..."

The ceiling fell away, and Oryx was there.

Lotte looked and knew she had made a dire mistake.

"..wha..." Lotte said. The immensity of him. The power. Those three burning eyes.

"I was Taken, Lotte. He almost had me. And when I escaped... I still died. I know I did. I bled out. I can feel it. It took everything I had and more... everything we all had to... to slow the Hive down. They're still up there... and he's still out there. Everything is running out and nothing will have a happy ending. It broke Diana to stop a, a tiny number from killing the Earth. We'll all break before we can stop them. And they'll start any day. And I can't do anything, not with magic, not with Chariot teaching me, not with the Shiny Rod... it's impossible. I'm dead and pretending to be alive. I just... I just don't want to pretend anymore."

Oryx hung in space, impossible, vast, and unblinking.

Closet Akko kept sobbing, eyes staring at the vast thing overhead. Like a stain in reverse, the color seeped from her hair, leaving her with faint white curls. She was right after all.

Taken Diana opened her mouth to speak.

In the stands, alien flame danced, writhing on burning magic plants. The dance slowed, the flames gliding easily to a halt.

The most delicate sound in the universe played; the sound of a breaking heartstring, the twinge of hope, the nervous pause before good news. Hanging over them, as if she had always been there, was an impossibly beautiful woman. Her skin was a lustrous brown, her hair luxurious, black, and longer than she was tall. She played a glittering web with all eight arm-legs; her velvety hide glistened, the fine razorlike hairs twinkling like stars against the overnight of Oryx.

Lotte felt a faint pang of familiarity and the hold Oryx had on her with his gaze broke. "Swiss Miss...?" she said.

"Please," Swiss Miss said. "This spell only lasts so long."

"What... what are you...?" Lotte struggled against the resin casts holding her in place. No give.

"Stop," Akko said. She could move. "Just stop. Let me die. I'm done. I'm done pretending..."

"Akko?" Closet Akko said.

The real Akko fell silent.

"That's what Diana said, remember? Once it was all done. What did you say to her?"

Nothing from Akko.

"You said she shouldn't ever give up and you'd never leave her. You love her, don't you?"

Lotte bit her lip and hoped to whatever god was listening that Sucy hadn't ruined everything.

"I do," Akko said.

Lotte let her lip free. She'd ask about it later but thank you God or Ithaqua or whomever she was supposed to pray to.

"Won't you stay with her? Please?"

"I... don't know... I don't know if I can..."

Inspiration struck Lotte like a meteor from heaven. "Atsuko Kagari!" Lotte shouted, lunging as far forward as she could. "You've seen all of this in real life, haven't you? The monsters, the violence, the, the evil Diana... the things she's done..."

"Yes," Akko said.

"You know what all of this has in common? You beat it. You beat all of it! You escaped Oryx's clutches and saved the Earth! You saved Diana! You killed every last one of these undead alien freaks! When everything was on the line... when it was absolutely impossible to win... you did it. You flipped the odds off and you did it."

"But..."

"Yes, there's always a catch. You're right--it was scary. It was impossible. But you did it anyway. And... and you weren't alone, either. Were you?"

"I... wasn't..." Akko breathed.

"You fought with the people you loved, and you fought for them. You're never alone, Akko. You weren't then, and you aren't now. It's alright to be afraid. It's alright to be weak. Because we're here, Akko. We're here to be strong for you 'til you can be strong with us. Those monsters can try to stop us all they want. Together, we'll beat them."

* * *

The Shiny Rod lay on the table, well in the middle out of easy access of Akko, should she awake in a murderous panic.

While Diana struggled to console Sucy and Jasminka silently rooted for Swiss Miss and Dr. Sternberg consulted his notes in the little red folder he kept for emergencies, the seventh gem began to gutter to life.

* * *

Akko breathed.

Taken Diana turned her head, or tried to. Her expression was nearly unreadable under the un-light of her eye, but Lotte couldn't help but feel that she was now very, very mad. Or scared.

"Alright..." Akko said. She climbed to her feet. "I'm very, very tired. I wanted to get some good sleep last night and so far I've missed two times out of two. And I can tell you this, freaky-ass space monsters." She held out her hand and the Shiny Rod appeared. "When I can't get my shut-eye I get grumpy." The Rod turned into its bow form. "So screw you, Urzok!"

She drew an arrow of light and fired it well over Lotte's head. It struck true, and Hive ash fluttered over her in slow motion like glitter in a snow globe.

"And screw you, Evil Pretend Girlfriend." The Rod shifted back to its default state; she touched Taken Diana's head and whispered "Lyonne."

The Taken blight burned away, and there stood Diana, angelic, Platonic in her perfection.

"Akko..." the thought-Diana said.

"I'm sorry I had to shoot you that one time," Akko said, kissing her. "But it won't happen again, okay? I promise."

"I believe you," Diana said.

"G'wan, git," Akko said, waving her off. The figment vanished. "Yeah... she doesn't need to see this."

The fires began to dance.

"Uhhhmm... Akko, if it's okay..." Lotte said, gesturing to her bonds with her head.

Akko flashed the Rod into its axe form. "One sec."

Lotte flinched as Akko swung it overhead and smashed the resin into pieces. She freed Closet Monster Akko and picked her out of the crunchy hard bits; the little white-haired Akko fell into her core identity's arms, depleted. Lotte wriggled free and onto her feet on her own. "So, uh... what now?"

Akko set her little self onto the stage, making sure she wouldn't tip over. "I think we have some gate crashers to evict. Oh, wait. Hey, are you back to normal too?"

With balled fists Closet Akko wiped away her tears. "I think so. I can be strong for all of us."

Movement returned. The sound of gunfire and screaming hit their ears; but the music stayed, too. Swiss Miss kept playing on, the sound of miracles.

"Can I come with?" Closet Akko said. "I wanna fight some space monsters 'cause they've been big huge jerks and I hate them."

"Sure," Akko said. "And here--" She tapped the Rod on empty air and a Diana plush in a Shiny Chariot getup appeared. Closet Akko grabbed it before it hit the ground, nearly tripping over herself as she did. "Lotte, you up for some adventure?"

"I think..." Lotte said. "I think I could... uh... I could work out some of the stuff I've seen. That you've seen." She blinked. "Akko, you've really seen all this stuff in real life?"

"Yeah," Akko said, the confidence in her voice flagging. "I... uh... the Hive suck. They really suck. Hell, this isn't even the worst of it. I'm just glad I'm still suppressing all the crap about the Taken." She looked around. "No earthquake? Okay, things are--"

Lotte sized her in a massive, teary hug.

"I'm so sorry you had to... to go through all that, Akko!"

Akko sniffled and hugged her back.

A bolt of black magic streaked past their heads, lighting Akko's hair on fire.

"Dude!" Akko said, patting it.

"Go, thou," the Leng-Spider said. "And conquer."

"Don't have to tell us twice!" Akko said. She clenched the Shiny Axe in her teeth like a pirate cutlass, scooped Lotte and Closet Monster Akko in her arms, and hopped from the stage to the middle of the battle in one leap.

* * *

An Ogre blocked the only way out; SWAT Akko's leg was dangling out of its broad mouth when the first retreating Akkos arived, and more Hive joined it as it stood guard, spraying black magic from its lumpy, tumorous head to hedge off any Akkos trying to escape. It came down to the hero units to try and buy time and draw attention away from the unarmed, innocent thoughts that just wanted to forget about the Hive.

Murder Akko worked the chainsaw into a Wizard's mouth, thrusting it down into her throat 'til her body gave up trying to cohere and collapsed into dust. "Yeah!" Murder Akko said, plummeting to the ground with her chainsaw overhead, "Eat it, bitch! Hoooof." She stuck the landing, though not gracefully, and revved up as she charged a Knight.

The Knight swiped her away with a casual swing of his massive cleaver. She tucked and rolled and cartwheeled onto her legs and smashed an Acolyte with the engine of her saw. "Fuck you too," she said, and found herself back to back with Herokko. There were no other heroes left. A loose circle of Acolytes and the two remaining Knights gathered around them. Past the circle were scattered gangs of Akkos cowering behind cover--shattered columns, overturned benches, convenient stacks of crates. It was all going to be over soon.

"Well," Herokko said, "that Knight has a Boomer and there's no cover for the Acolytes and if that Ogre wants to it can just make us disappear."

"Shit's rough," Murder Akko said.

"And they're not killing us 'cause they're waiting on us to lose hope. 'Cause we can't possibly survive and all, you see."

"I mean, yeah, but I'm not gonna give 'em the fuckin' satisfaction. I came into this world doin' murders and I'm gonna go screamin' to hell doin' murders." She aimed her saw at the Knight with the Boomer; he was already taking aim. "Count of three. One--"

The sound of divine harp brought the ensuing melee to a still; Hive angled their heads trying to pinpoint its source. The musical sound was interrupted by a booming voice:

_"Noct! Orfei! Aude! Fraetor!"_

A brilliant burst of magic slammed into the Boomer-carrying Knight; it exploded, chunks of chitin fragging the Acolytes who stayed too near it. With a frenzied shriek Akko, the core Akko, brought her axe down on the other. It was clenched in her teeth, and a very excited-looking, white-haired Closet Monster Believer Akko and an utterly unsurprised Lotte were in her arms.

"How the hell did she fire it like that?" Herokko said.

"Shut the fuck up and start murdering!" Murder Akko said, charging the Acolytes.

"You heard 'er, girls!" Akko said, setting down her allies. "Let's clean some house!"

The Ogre bellowed, stepping away from the entrance and projecting its beam attack at the gathered heroes.

"Nuh-uh," Akko said. "Arae Aryrha!" She swung the Rod at the Hive beast; the rod burst into a column of green light, forming into a mighty six-clawed anchor that clenched around the Ogre's head, choking off its attack. With a small huff Akko reeled the rod like she was fishing; the Ogre lurched into the air, and with a mighty swing flung it to the other side of the ballroom, smashing through the stage and dying in a burst of light.

The details were ephemeral. Lotte worked out some of her angst directing a spirit conjured from her sheer exhausted terror--she named it The News--in the task of ripping apart dead things. Closet Monster Akko held out her Diana doll and projected healing light from it, restoring fallen Akkos and blinding Hive.

Beast by beast, Akko by Akko, the dreamers and figments set things right.

Akko leaned against the Shiny Axe, panting and soaked with sweat. "That's all of 'em," Akko said.

"You did kill the suck-face monster, yes?" The Akko Who Loves Diana said. She was taking conspicuously deep breaths.

"One of my boys did," Lotte said, patting The News. The News was mostly sharp blade-limbs and no head, so finding a safe spot to pat was a trick. "I'm so glad Closet Akko raised you from the dead. I can't imagine how badly it would hurt Akko if her love for Diana were just... erased."

"Oh, really, this is just a metaphor," Rod Akko said. She was seated on a chunk of surviving Hive chitin that was lacking in spikes or angles. "You can kill a thought, but thoughts usually come back. Suppressing your thoughts doesn't stop them, it just means they'll come back meaner later. ... Aw, hell, that's the lesson we're supposed to learn, isn't it?"

"Sounds like it," Akko said. She picked up the axe. "But... screw it. Everything sucked today and tonight, and I'm done thinking about you alien dead things tonight." She looked up. Lotte decided not to look up even if it would be a form of solidarity. ["Who wants to kill Nightmare Oryx?"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPLFQpApMAg)

"Yeah!" Rod Akko said, flipping her replica Rod into a roleplay toy version of the Shiny Arc. "Let's do it!"

"I heard murder!" Murder Akko said, shouldering a Hive Cleaver.

"You... you guys go ahead!" Knew The Closet Monster Was Real Before Everyone Else Did Akko said, waving them on. "I'm all heroed out."

"Me too," Lotte said, hugging the little figment. "Send us on home."

"Can do," Akko said, conjuring a Shiny Chariot hat and planting it onto her head. With a phalanx of like-minded action-Akkos at her side, she marched back toward the center of the party--the Our Founder statue, where Oryx in His vastness was most overhead.

Swiss Miss had moved, in whatever way she had to move in this metaphor, to the air above where the Akkos gathered. "Strike him down," Missy said, "and let us awaken."

"Oryx," Akko said, charging up a Shiny Arc shot, "you're going bye-bye."

Three bolts of Shiny Arc flew into the air, entwining into a single massive bolt that splashed harmlessly against a Hive energy shield that glowed--not a reddish-orange or pale blue or vibrant indigo, but stark white.

"Alright," Akko said, switching to the Shiny Axe. "Let's try that from the top. And a one, two, three--"

Oryx pronounced a single Note and the Shiny Rod shattered in her hands. Murder Akko screamed, covering her ears; torrents of blood poured from them. From her nose. Fom behind her eyes--  
She died, messily. The other Akkos did in turn, one by one. Lotte saw the tide of death spreading through the Akkos and screamed, clenching Closet Akko close to her chest as she clung tight to Lotte, the Diana doll between them.

Swiss Miss made a rasping hiss, the sound of pedipalp brushing against chelicera. "Filthy, aborted thing..." she snarled. "Get you from the skin of this world." She played a holy Note of her own, the note of the Great Old One Atlach-Nacha, Dream-Weaver, ruler of the Dreamlands, mother of spiders, dark queen of sleep to Cthulhu's sunken god. The Note hit Oryx's ears; annoyed, He reached from His perch, impossibly high, and closed His fist around Swiss Miss, and squeezed tight.

* * *

Swiss Miss rose into the air over Akko's face. With a sharp crack, she was crushed to a weeping pulp and flung aside.

* * *

"You're just a memory," Akko said. She was lying on the ground, scrambling away from Oryx, away from the corpse of Swiss Miss, and among the Akkos she had just saved, all dead. "I'm gonna... I'll make it through this. I know I will."

"Memory..." Oryx said. "Perhaps this is. Defiant One who would circumvent the will of Oryx, know this: an echo is weakened by distance, but it is still the same sound. And my will echoes far."

"Memory. Just... just a..."

"'Just.'" Oryx paused a moment to parse the intricacies of Akko's language. "In only one way am I just."

Lotte sang, softly, into Closet Akko's ear, past when the blood flowed from the little figment's ears, past when she stopped moving. " _Lennä, lennä leppakerttu, ison kiven juureen... siellä on sun äitis, isäs, keittää sulle puuroo..._ "

"Yeah," Akko said. She felt her back press into the Our Founder statue's base. She took a deep breath. "You're right, even. I'll give you that. There's only one 'just' you are. You're just a fuckboy."

She pinched the webbing between her forefinger and thumb and woke up.

* * *

Untold lightyears away, Oryx felt an Echo lose its connection with a remote planet. It was a tenuous connection; perhaps it wouldn't have been able to do much more than demonstrate the Sword Logic for an ignorant and lost planet. But it had imparted a lesson, a valuable one, and so He was pleased, and with a little taste of suffering rich and fresh in His maw He returned His full attention to the god with whom he had made acquaintance.

Oryx stood on the prow of the Dreadnaught. The Joy of Spring, a god of life and happiness a million miles long, had wrapped around his vehicle in a futile attempt to turn it into a paradisical garden. (Were that the sad wretch knew of the gardens of the Vex. Such childlike naivite, to believe that all could become one, when in truth, the Deep would only permit a One to become All. Ah, but now He was being distracted again.) He had pared the Joy of Spring down to a single tuber and at the end of that tuber was a head and attaching the animal head to the vegetable body was a neck. That most useful of anatomies. His fingers wrapped around the Joy of Spring's neck; it struggled to maintain connection with the rest of its body.

"Every god believes it is ancient and unknowable," He pronounced; through the vacuum of space, His words boomed in the ears of all nine billion sentient beings on that great pearly laughingstock below Him. "But no god is more ancient of days than the Deep, and no god as inscrutable. I am the hand which bears its Logic of the Sword, and it is My hand that brings it down upon you now." He crushed the god's neck, blends of sacred ichors pouring down his talons, blood blooming into desperate, beautiful flowers that bloomed only brief moments before the truth of the Darkness slew them and they returned to the absence from which they were spawned, born a meaningless gesture, died a failure of hope.

Idly, as His armies descended upon the planet to eat and Take everything upon it, he remembered: the pain he had tasted was the pain of Earth. His new favorite Taken was from there. Ah, yes...

"Diana Cavendish," Oryx said.

"Yes?" the Taken Diana said from her perch deep within the Dreadnaught.

"Atsuko Kagari is dreaming of you.  She hates you. She fears you. And the Defiant One will be long dead by the simple weakness of life before Earth's time comes." He smiled. "She was terrified of me. It pleases me that no part of her will survive."

Diana Cavendish said nothing and feasted on her share of the pain and horror of the planet dying below them. I am not strong, she thought. But I can be; and I will be; and I will see her. And she will be mine. And Oryx will die in service to the Sword Logic. And we will be a Perfect Final Shape.

In this way, in this impossible dream, doomed before she was born, did she feed the Worm.


	6. The Shelter in Place

"I feel like every time I find the thread it slips through my fingers." —RECORD-448-CHASM-6565  
"Some armor doesn't protect you so much as it just makes the dying slower." -- The Shelter in Place

* * *

 

Akko opened her eyes. Her heart was hammering; she felt soaking wet and dry as a stone all at once. Probably all the sweat she felt crystallizing on her skin.

Oryx's eyes blazed in the darkness pooled in the ceiling, just as they had when she woke this morning, and she knew, knew as surely as she knew the feeling of breath in her lungs, that he was here, torn through astral depths to reach her and kill her for the sin of defying him. Or he would Take her, and that would be that.

She didn't know she had any water left to spill, but her eyes welled, and she blinked them away; Oryx's eyes burned even through her closed eyes. She could feel the pressure, the gravity of his grasping talons, smell the dusty, rotten miasma of his breath. He was here and the world was going to burn and she had nothing to use against him; not her shapeshifting magic, not the Shiny Rod, not her friends, not the love she had for Diana. Those things were what he fed on. What he rendered null and void just by existing.

"Okay," Akko said, meeting his gaze, holding it, unblinking. "Let's do this, you big dead... skull moth... bitch. Come and get me." She reached for the Shiny Rod and touched Lotte instead.

Lotte was curled up, quietly sobbing into her hands. She sniffled and turned, slowly, to Akko. "Akko?" she said. "Are you... are you okay?"

Akko closed her eyes and forced her head to connect thoughts in a straight line. If Oryx were here, he'd have said something mean by now, so no, she was just imagining him. "I'm okay," she said.

"Are you sure?" Diana said somewhere nearby, her voice trembling.

"Yeah, Diana, I'm... wait. Hey, wait..." Akko propped herself up, feeling her bones all crack in sequence as she did. Diana was aiming Rose at her, a healing spell trickling excess mana to the ground; in the viewing globe, Dr. Sternberg looked up from a stack of tomes and folders, a wand clenched in his teeth; Sucy was on the far side of the sofa cocooned in sheets; and she couldn't see Jasminka, but she could hear her sob hysterically.

"Please, tell me you're okay, in that many words," Diana stammered, fighting to hold back a flood of tears.

"I'm okay, Diana," Akko said. "I'm safe. I'm... I'm not fine, but I'm safe."

Diana lunged for her, squeezing her tight and crying into her shoulder. Lotte joined a moment later, and Akko joined in as best she could. Those had been her last tears, it felt. She was exhausted, spiritually, physically. She'd run out of speeches to give. She just let it happen, let the sorrow overtake her body. No metaphors, no figments.

On the viewing globe, Dr. Sternberg let out an exhausted sigh and dug through the pile of reference texts, seeking a particular legal pad.

Sucy watched it all with one half-opened eye, her face barely peeking from her nest of blankets. Diana had pulled them free from a box under the coffee table when she had deciphered Sucy's not-especially-difficult-to-decipher half-awake ramblings. She watched them cry, heard Jasminka weep not far away, and she wished that she could feel something beyond the choking sensation of revelation.

The reverie ended only when their first guest arrived, an early bird teacher checking on students who might've fallen asleep last night while studying or reading or loitering. That teacher was Chariot, dressed in a formless tracksuit, the sleeves rolled up from her cybernetic wrists. She saw the group sobbing session, realized who it was, and vaulted over furniture and just past the seated Sucy, capping off with a pirouette over the coffee table all the way to where the girls were crying.

"Akko?" she said, not even out of breath.

Akko looked up, forcing a smile. "It's been a long night, Chariot."

"Are you alright?" She wrung her hands; the fine joints of her magitech replacements hummed faintly.

"Kinda," Akko said. "I'm, uh... I'm really thirsty..."

"Teach?" Jasminka said, voice wavering. She held Swiss Miss's mortal remains close to her chest, folded in a handkerchief. Forever Peace, seated on her shoulder, stared in slack-jawed despair at what had become of his friend. "I... I can get her something to drink. I... I need to take a walk, anyway..." Her face was ruddy, her nose raw, her eyes glinting with endless tears.

"If you must," Chariot said, not as loudly as she'd wanted to. "What in the name of Mormo happened here?"

"It is a very long story," Dr. Sternberg said, startling her. He filled her in as the hug disentangled itself.

"Gods above and below," Chariot said. "Post-traumatic stress disorder. You're barely old enough to drive..."

"Yeah," Akko said, trying to be casual so she could sound like a badass. "It's rough."

"The Hive are bastards," Diana said firmly.

"Not just the Hive," Lotte said. Only now did she deign look at Sucy.

Sucy looked back, shifting almost imperceptibly under her sheets. They couldn't see her feel for her potion reagent pouch; she was never without one.

"Lotte," Diana said, "whatever you're going to say, please say it gently. Sucy has... she's remembered things she didn't want to."

"After making Akko remember things she didn't want to," Lotte said. "She--she was just a huge jerk all the time from start to finish! And it was because she, she didn't want Akko to love you, Diana. She made Akko remember when you were--" She clapped her hand over her mouth.

Diana froze.

"--Taken," Sucy finished, her voice as loud as a squeaking shoe.

Diana shivered so violently Akko's heart skipped a beat.

"Sucy!" Lotte said. "You--you just had--you lived through a literal nightmare and you just go right back to making us uncomfortable? How? Why?" She climbed out of the bedding and stomped around the table, past the viewing globe. When Sucy didn't respond, she continued: "I can't belive the nerve on you. You helped Akko through all sorts of tough times and now that she's in love with Diana--you're just--you're totally fine with kicking her while she's down? Making her have a panic attack? Act like you wanna help her just so you can try to reshape her brain so she'll--not love Diana?"

She did her best to loom over Sucy, though even seated Lotte had to stand on tiptoes to achieve the right height to look authoritative.

"Yeah," Sucy said. "That sounds like the tall and short of it." She looked down, at Lotte's belly. Only now did Lotte see her left eye for the first time. It was enough to get her tripping over her own words.

"W...well... that was an evil thing to do. And I know you've been... Sucy, you've been mean to Akko forever. You used to be meaner but you still poison her every other day, you scare her, you're... you're all touchy-feely..."

"Yeah," Sucy said. "When you put it like that, I'm just like my mother, aren't I?"

"Sucy," Diana said, "you don't have to be like your mother. It's never too late to change."

"Did I miss something?" Akko said, voice quavering. "Because I don't like the sound of what I think I missed."

"Akko," Sucy said, "I have a question for you. If you don't mind."

"What is it?" Akko said.

Sucy moved imperceptibly under her coccoon. "Do you love me?"

"Of course I do," Akko said. "You were my first new friend. You've been there for me for... almost a year now. I can't imagine my life without you in it."

The seventh star on the Claiomh Solais, struggling to awaken, began to falter.

"Do you love me like you love Diana?" Sucy said. "If I kissed you, would you turn away? If I... if I wanted to..." For the first time in her life the word was hard to say. "If I wanted to... to f-f- _f-fuck_ you.. would you say yes... because you wanted to? Because you wanted me to _touch_ you?"

Akko thought long and hard about what she was going to say. "Sucy... the way I love you isn't like how I love Diana. But I--"

"So the answer is 'no,'" Sucy said.

"Sucy, please, I'm sorry--"

" _You're_ sorry?" Lotte said. She turned to stare, incredulously, at Akko. "Were you the one who just did all that awful stuff in your head?"

"It's... it's complicated, Lotte," Akko said, trying ot free herself from Diana's grasp. "Friendship is one of those... like, it's hard to define, you know? Sucy, back me up on this one."

"I'm with Lotte on this," Sucy said, scarcely above a whisper.[ "We're done."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JGDWKJfgxQ) She retreated into her cocoon.

After one last awkward silence Dr. Sternberg spoke: "I'll... I'll arrange for psychiatrists and psychologists with the appropriate specialties to come to Luna Nova. If my demands allow for it, I'll visit when I can."

"Thanks," Lotte said.

"I'll take over from here," Chariot said, gently.

Akko rolled off the couch and retrieved the Rod. The seventh star was lightless. It seemed, perhaps, a little less luminous than it used to be. "Come on, Diana," Akko said. "I need to sleep somewhere. Somehow. I don't know how but I guess I'll..."

"Ms. Callist--I mean, Ms. du Nord," Diana said, putting a hand on Akko's shoulder. "Can she stay in my room tonight? Today? Whatever word is best for this hour?"

"I'll talk with the headmistress," Chariot said.

Jasminka returned with drinks and a little coffin. For long, miserable minutes they wated for Chariot to finish the call, nursing their drinks. All save Sucy.

Chariot ended the call, relayed information to Dr. Sternberg, and at last, he departed. The night was over. "Everyone," she said, "if you want to return to your rooms, now is the time."

"I... is it okay if I go to your room, Diana?" Akko said. "I... I don't know if I can sleep in my normal bed tonight."

"Of course," Diana said, kissing Akko's cheek.

"Can I come along too?" Lotte said. She gave Sucy a sidelong look.

Sucy looked at her back.

"It should be fine, yes," Diana said. "The mattress in the den folds out."

"Can I come... oh, right," Jasminka said, touching the little coffin. "No, I'll... I'll be fine. When my friends wake up..."

"Come on," Diana said, helping Akko to her feet. Lotte helped herself, picking up her viewing globe. She turned her sidelong glance into a held glare at Sucy, who hadn't changed position.

"Well?" Sucy said.

"That really was a horrible thing you did," Lotte said.

"I know."

"I hope you..." Lotte bit down what she wanted to say. "I hope you learn to feel bad about it."

"I do," Sucy said.

"Good." Lotte turned and followed Diana and Akko out of the student union. Jasminka followed them, humming a hymn for Swiss Miss--though more for her and her surviving pet's nerves. Chariot lingered behind.

"Sucy, please," Chariot said. "Don't do anything drastic. Things will be fine. This will... this will get settled. Your friends, they'll--"

"Shh," Sucy said.

* * *

Diana soon fell asleep in Akko's arms; Akko stayed awake as long as her nerves held out, collapsing into a dreamless darkness at ten in te morning while the students still at school over summer vacation carried on.

Lotte fell asleep at seven, wrapped around her viewing globe as it played soft music and felt warm. Not even the thick blanket Diana dug out of her linen closet seemed to keep her warm.

Sucy slithered into an empty room and stared at the wall and thought.

The faculty came to a conclusion before the afternoon was out; and within a few days, the better for it to be laden with symbolic power, the ritual commenced.

* * *

The ritual took only a few minutes in Headmistress Holbrooke's office.

Akko looped a blue band over the brim of her hat. "There," she said, planting it on her head.

Lotte looped a blue belt around her waist. It was snug but not constricting, a perfect fit that her red belt did not afford, no matter how many times she adjusted the slack. A litle too much and it practically fell down her hips; one tighter and it was like getting sat on by a wall.

"Do the colors proud," Headmistress Holbrooke said. "You may only be a guest in the color, but honor it as you would honor your own."

"We were supposed to be honoring our colors?" Akko said.

Holbrooke giggled. "That's the Kagari sense of humor!"

"No, I'm asking. What were we supposed to do to--is there a god we shoulda been burning things for?"

"In this case, no," Diana said. "Just continue being a hero to the world and you should be fine." She kissed her ear. Diana had been exceptionally physical the last day. Akko had no problem with that. She felt safer in her arms and warmer at the brush and pressure of her lips.

"Cool," Akko said.

Traveler wound himself between the girls' legs.

"Right," Diana said. "We're late for our date."

"Oh, yeah!" Akko said.

"You guys have fun," Lotte said, smiling brightly. "I guess I'll keep myself busy."

"Seeya at our new room, Lolo," Akko said, waving as she and Diana left Holbrooke's office, hand in hand, Traveler right at their heels. It was the anniversary of their meeting, and Jennifer Memorial tree was waiting for them.

[Things were a little strange there.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15296436/chapters/35668821)

* * *

Sucy sat on the edge of her bed, swaddled for a bath in a fluffy bathrobe, pink slippers, and a log of European ashwood resting in her lap. She had been sitting here for several minutes, at least since Hannah and Barbara finished hauling their stuff into the room. In particular Sucy had been staring at the blank patch on the wall where Akko's Shiny Chariot poster used to hang.

"Well?" Hannah said, waving her hand in front of Sucy's face.

"Well, what?" Sucy said, less aggressively than usual.

"Are you gonna apologize?"

"For?"

"Kicking us out of Diana's room, you fucking _reptile_!"

Sucy narrowed her eyes. (She hadn't bothered combing her hair over her glass eye today.) "I dare say that sounds like a term of racial derision, Ms. England."

"'Cause you're not even a person, you ugly thing," Hannah said, kicking her in the shin. Sucy was tough, but that was a kick delivered with genuine hatred and a sturdy shoe. "I hate you. I hate you! You slimy warty little _halfbreed homewrecking_ \--" She used a particularly strong word.

"How about you, bluey?" Sucy said, not looking at Barbara as she nested in the bottom bunk. "Anything you wan--"

"Shut up," Barbara said, and added, in a conspiratorial whisper, the harshest racial slur she knew, not that it was an accurate one.

Sucy blinked. But she maintained silence.

Hannah gasped, then giggled. "You hear that, Golly? While you're stuck with us you're gonna get called whatever we want you. And you think you can just try and tell someone, huh? You gave that stupid bitch Akko bad dreams and so you get to be the--"

"I'm gonna go take a bath," Sucy said, standing up. "That okay with you?"

"If you can help it, don't come back," Hannah said, flipping her off.

"We'll see," Sucy said, shuffling out the door.

* * *

Lotte sat on the Luna Nova lawn, half-dozing, half incapable of dozing. She had stocked up on melatonin and a wild assortment of calming drinks ranging from peppermint tea to Sippin' Syrup soda and even so getting a good night's sleep after the horrors she saw in Akko's dream had been a dicey subject.

So she thought she might have been dreaming awake when she saw the fantastically beautiful witch near the edge of the lawn. She was short--not quite as short as Annabel Creme, say, but shorter than Lotte, and that admittedly caught her eye almost as much as her waist-length platinum-blonde hair gently blowing in the breeze. She was in the Luna Nova uniform, but didn't recognize her. She hadn't exactly paid the closest attention during the commencement speech this year; maybe this one had escaped her eye until now.

She hiked up to the witch, practicing what she would say to her. And so when she reached the witch gazing out at the forest she blurted "Hello! I'm Lotte! What's your name?" Like she was six.

The girl turned her head. She was smiling, but it was the saddest smile she'd seen in... well, a few days. Her eyes were a brilliant crimson, so shiny it even put Ms. du Nord and Akko to shame. Her heart skipped a beat.

"My name is Lilou," the girl said. She turned to face Lotte, brushing silken hair out of her face; there was a plain green ring on her ring-finger. "I need to talk to you."

"About...?" Lotte said, blushing. A parade of spectacular images unraveled in her head, all of them culminating in a visit to the local chapel. (One day she would have to ask someone if it was normal to fantasize about getting married at the frequency many people fantasized about getting laid.)

The beautiful blonde sniffled. "Charlotte Marja Jansson," she said, "would you believe me if I told you the end of the world was here?"

* * *

Sucy bribed the fire spirit with the ash--judging by the internet that was the go-to for firewood--and the chubby little beastie snacked on the log while she locked the door to the personal bath and changed the sign to "Occupied." She stretched as the bath began to fill, cricking her neck and back into place one last time as she listened to the rush of hot water. Steam rose in a cloud from the churning waters. She breathed it in and thought of home. All it was missing were the chemical odors of home.

Home. She _missed_ home.

Well, this was the right decision.

She took the razor in hand and glided into the bath. The water was hot, soothing against her skin. She sank in to her neck; her hair billowed around her in a cloud of purple like seaweed. Her flesh felt suspended, her bones like driftwood locked inside sacks of jelly. It was one of her favorite sensations.

She lie there for a long time, letting the heat seep into her. She tried to think of the good times.

Nothing from birth to age 17, then.

Akko. Meeting Akko on the bridge.

Turning into a fish and watching her save the little fish family. The ball where she'd sent Akko on a wild snipe hunt to stop the Love Bee. Getting swallowed whole by Vajarois--the most sexual satisfaction she'd ever had in her brief life--with Akko wriggling next to her as they passed through the ghost's spectral innards.

[Akko](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oWF1jpISxg).

Akko was the only part of her life that made her feel happy.

Sucy had a mother that cared for her once. Ramzan Manbavaran, a distant relative on her birthmother's side; she awoke one day at age six next to a corpse, the remains of Ramzan's lungs drooling from her mouth, Shugoran posed on top of her, snuffling down the rest of her lights. Her birthmother waited for her in the corner, along with her fathers, there to give her good news: she was half-monster and her fathers' blood had bred true into hers. Therefore there was no further need for a nursemaid.

That began eleven years of waking nightmares; poison, conjuration, sourceless explosions, sacrifices of mental and physical health to Zharlloigor in its/their ineffable slumber, singing the names of gods terrible even by the standards of witchgods, and the occasional attentions of her mother.

Drunk, as always. But only then was she ever gentle, only then did she pose kindly. "Your mother is so lonely, and your fathers are such brutes. You love me, don't you?"

"No, mother," Sucy said, here and now, to the empty bathroom, " _I don't._ "

She thought about Akko and pressed the edge of the razorblade into her wrist, feeling a jab of pain. A plume of indigo rose to the surface like ink. She pursed her lips as she dragged the blade down, following the line of her vein; she had traced it with her finger all last night, practicing this cut. The plume spread, grew, and became beautiful.

She closed her eyes and sank beneath the waves, letting out her last breath. She breathed in the water without panic. She never could breathe underwater as her fathers could; she just lacked the instinctive terror of drowning that a pure human would. So she breathed in the taste of blood and dreamed of Atsuko Kagari--

\--forgiving Diana Cavendish--  
\--falling in love with her--  
\--even if, in the end--  
\--she had been Taken.

Akko had a capacity for love beyond Sucy's ability to conceive. Akko forgave Diana for things nobody should ever be forgiven for. She had fallen in love with Diana and stayed in love throughout everything.

_If I crawl out of this tub,_ Sucy thought, _and if I go to Akko, and I tell her I'm sorry, and I mean it, she'll forgive me. I mean it. I mean it more than anything._

_If her love is a star in someone else's sky (as the poet says) I will grow by its light like a mushroom does._

_If I crawl out._

_If I wake up._

_I'm falling asleep._

_I won't. I'm not._

_I..._

Sucy Manbavaran slipped into a final sleep and

* * *

awoke screaming, gasping, lukewarm blood-tasting water splashing, an agony beyond name burning in her head and chest.

Sense returned slowly. She was dead. She had to be dead. She was dead and in some twilight place on the road to eternal damnation and Croix was here.

Oh, that cinched it: definitely hell.

Croix was soaked up to her hairline, faintly tinted from Sucy's diluted blood. The water around her was nearly as much blood as water--she'd bled out. There was no way there could be that much blood and herself still be ali--

Oh. Right. Healing magic.

Sucy's breathing approached normalcy. "The... the fuck? How did... what did... who did you... invoke? The Black Goat? The Source of Uncleanliness? Please don't say you called on the mother of my mothers." She realized she should probably cover herself up and did so, locking her arm over her chest.

"Fuck all that," Croix said brightly. "I have something better."

Sucy blinked. "What do you mean 'bett'--am I undead? ... Was I dead?"

"You were dead, yeah," Croix said, patting her like a dog that learned a new trick. "Good fifteen minutes by the time I got here. But that's child's play for what I have in you."

"Have... what did you do to me?" She felt around. The pain was beginning to ebb. Or, maybe not ebb. Maybe it was starting to center behind her...

Light. There was light coming into her glass eye.  It was seeing. Or was she imagining it?

No. That was light. A steady pulsing red light blooming outward. She felt a tingle in the socket.

She was hyperventilating. She leaned out of the tub, as if daring herself to slip now, after all this. The light resolved into a symbol: five rhomboid shapes. Three-fourths of a diamond, the lower-left quadrant rotated out of place, an additional bar beneath the right. The symbol bloomed out and an image of the world rendered in hazy red filled in the missing half of her vision. Not long after, the red shifted, and her perception of color was equal in both eyes.

Both eyes.

"What is this?" Sucy said, half-whispered.

Croix flicked her hand; a long metal probe emerged from between her middle and ring fingers. The probe flattened itself at the edge to a blade; she sliced the underside of her other arm. Blood trickled hesitantly from the wound, catching itself in midair, stretching back up towards the wounded vein. Flecks of light glowed in her blood; it crawled back inside, sealing up the wound with streaks of red light that slowly faded to a pale scar. Croix smirked, and said:

["SIVA."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiZHNw1MtzI)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "There's a story about a serpent selling knowledge. The moral is: always be the serpent." -- Viper Spine
> 
> To be continued in I Am That No Longer.
> 
> Coming... eventually. Almost certainly after November. But we'll see when.


End file.
